A gift.
Just the other day, Nancy Wolfson handed over a gift we all can use. Something she had prepared for another publication that went unused. “Why waste it?” she said. “Dave, can you put it in your blog?” Ah…gee… I really had to think about that one.
Top LA-based voice acting producer/coach/director Wolfson produces erudite content at a pace akin to the sales of snow shovels in Buffalo. Her resumé touches on all aspects of the voiceover universe, and has for years. The Wolfson training series is tantamount to a graduate-level course at Yale in acting for advertising. Yes, I’m biased. Maybe you haven’t yet been touched by the Wolfson mystique, but I recognize excellence when I see it.
Enough. See for yourself in the following essay she provided. Thanks, Nancy!
CourVO
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WHAT SHOULD TALENT BE LOOKING FOR IN A COACH
Results.
Know the results you want and pick the coach who has procured for others the results you want for yourself.
A Plan.
If you want to build a business that affords you the fun of brokering “playing around in other realities” for a profit, you need a guide with a plan. That plan should include a clear blueprint of action tasks, skills and strategies for what you need to know and how you can realize those goals. You want a coach who will take your performance and business abilities as seriously and as far as you can take yourself. And then push you farther.
And together, realize your dreams.
The primary responsibility of a company, at least here in America, is to return profits to shareholders. Find a coach who has exhibited an adaptability to the changing landscapes of our business for themselves and for their students, who has maintained a solid reputation of having built careers with people who have experienced not just personal growth but also responsible financial profits. Remember that start up company – the one that had Devo Hat Fridays and orange bean bags in the lobby but did not make any money? It dot “bombed.” Those “we had sOoOo much fun!” employees who only had fun had to find a new place to work because a hoot and a holler didn’t make ’em a dollar.
The process of learning the skills necessary to profitably service the marketplace as a voiceover talent and working one’s brand therein can be a stimulating, hilarious, illuminating, and sometimes frustrating experience. Growth isn’t always a bag of laughs. The payoff comes when a killer education then affords you the luxury of having an often goofy work lifestyle that actually makes you money. It is paramount that you enlist a discriminating coach who has proven able to guide a variety of committed people – not just actors, but accountants, stay-at-home dads, singers, DJs and blood splatter analysts – into using this uniquely creative platform, this playground of word games, to make their students money.
A Passion.
What characteristics define a great coach?
Well, certainly a great coach has that Plan.
An even better coach will have relationships that can offer you Pipelines of Access to casting, agents, buyers, and up-to-the-minute advice on which sources are returning the most robust results to and with talent today.
Ultimately, a great coach must have a Passion – perhaps one that is Greater than your Own – a damn near obsession with language, business, art, culture, branding, and most importantly, a passion for your success.
And… ready?
No Patience.
(Wait – don’t leave – come back.)
No patience for your efforts to argue for own limitations.
No patience for you to slack in accomplishing in today’s P2P marketplace,
what is, with a trusty coach by your side who has deconstructed it all for you, very achievable.
No patience for you to be anything less than your best, most silly playful profitable self.
Nancy Wolfson
Braintracksaudio.com
