GTT Spotlight: Voice Actor and Atlanta Voiceover Studio Owner Heidi Rew

0:00The George the Tech Performer Friendly Podcast is brought to you by FullCompass and FullCompass.com. We know VO and... GTT! Not sure if your audio sounds professional, as sound checked by George the Tech removes all doubts and explains the next steps. Audio books, podcasts or voiceovers, for content creators, we do it all. New customers get 20% off with coupon code XPTO. George the Tech Well, we have a evaluation process. What we want to do is, if you're going to come and do our demo, if you book a job tomorrow, we want you to be able to shine in that book session. And so we know what the client is going to ask. And we want to make sure that you can do that so that they become a repeat client. George the Tech Hey everybody, it's George the Tech on the Performer Friendly Podcast. Well, it's about time I had this guest on.

1:00She had me on her show. It's only fair and there's a lot to learn about our wonderful guest today, Heidi Rue. She is a full-time voice actor on camera actor, podcast host and co-owner of Atlanta Voiceover Studio, which is really where I first heard about her when they were at VO Atlanta. Heidi started in radio about a 15-year plus career really in voiceover and now helps talent sharpen their skills, understand their brand, and navigate the business side of VO through her Atlanta Voiceover Studio and provoiceovertraining.com. How you doing Heidi? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. George really appreciate it. I mean, we had so much fun together then on the other podcast, might as well, right? Keep it going. Exactly. So I would love to know a bit about your foundation and that got you to the point of voice acting. Are you coming from the radio side, the stage acting side,

2:03or some weird amalgamation of those? Yeah, a mixture of those. In fact, I mean, I've been acting since I was little. I did musical theater. I hosted a TV show for a year out of college. I just never thought that was going to be my career. So I ended up, I really wanted to do radio, ended up at a station in Atlanta, and didn't really even know anything about voiceover. And it wasn't until this coworker of mine said, hey, do you do voiceover because I could listen to your voice all day. And I was like, that sounds like a line. No doubt. And so he taught me about voiceover and how to do it. And how to do it kind of on the side. That was really what he did in addition to radio. And said, that's what I did.

3:04And he also married me. So it all worked out. That was my husband, Mike Stout. He was already on with an agent for on camera stuff. So man, I mean, I'm not telling you to go marry a person for a referral, but it sure does help. Sometimes. It really does help. Well, we're going to rewind. You get off that easy because that would be the world's shortest broadcast. But I want to know, do you remember wanting to be in theater? Or do you remember it being sort of a thing in the family? Like, let's do theater. Oh, no, it was all me much to the unfortunateness of my siblings, because I would make them perform with me growing up. Yeah, you even have the, oh, yeah. The annoying one. Oh, the annoying one. The annoying one. And I would definitely want like practices and my sisters like, oh, my gosh, Heidi, like, let's just have fun. I'm like, no, this has to be perfect. Yeah.

4:04And my brother, Ned, even there's the best video of him. And you, you pan over and my sister and I are trying to sing and do this whole performance. And you pan over to him. And he has the most dramatic eye roll you have ever seen in your entire. It's so dramatic. You can literally hear it. Oh, you absolutely. I mean, his eyes are just going way back in his head. So yeah, I've just, I've always wanted to do that. I did an elementary school and just had a real passion for it for a long time. I just didn't ever think it was going to be my career. Yeah. And you remember a video camera being in the household from childhood? Yeah. My dad loved it. I don't even know how we got one because we did not have any money. I think it was probably a hand me down from his brother or something like that. But oh, yeah, my dad loved the video camera. You think that had any influence at all in your desire to perform because when the camera was there or on,

5:07you'd kind of light up for does that do you remember that? You know what? I think it's actually the opposite. I think that I just wanted to perform no matter what. And but what is very interesting is that it never phased me. So it didn't feel like, oh, once the camera comes on, then we perform. It was like no, we're performing. We're creating something. You just think that's it. Yeah, there's a camera there. They're great. Yeah. Which is actually really good because so many times, that's I think one of the biggest hurdles with people, even for on camera stuff and for voiceover. It's like all of a sudden the camera comes up and they get stiff, you know. Yeah, well, they think they have to be on. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And they put on something. Yeah, exactly. That's interesting actually. Yeah. So just the ability to be free and in that character, in that world that you've created in your head or on paper,

6:09and being able to completely forget that it's a camera or a microphone picking you up and then all the same time having it all look or sound and or sound great. Yeah. That's an amazing, amazing thing to accomplish. Yeah. It is interesting though because I think that I remember a specific time in my life where I did become more self-conscious. And, you know, they always say like, be a kid because a kid can just be and light up without feeling that, you know, kind of self-awareness. Yeah. And I hate that. And I've still tried to always go back to that somehow. Like, how can I access that when I was a kid again? Yeah. Well, do you remember distinctly as a teenager or at some point in life where you became so self-conscious about performing that it held you back? Yeah. I mean, I remember I sang in front of like my entire high school, I think in high school.

7:15Well, obviously I just said that in high school. I sang in front of the high school, in high school. And I just remember all of a sudden, like people weren't as engaged and I just remember, I think I probably over exaggerated it in my mind. But all of a sudden it felt like the fantasy of the performance just kind of fell. And I saw the reality of like, oh, wow, not everybody's interested in this. And that I think kind of shattered a lot for me, you know, in a way. Oh, I get it. I mean, I look at actors who somehow make it through their teen years going from child. My daughter is 17. She started, she had her first camera or printing commercial agent at two, I think. Wow. And then she was done by five.

8:17And it wasn't that she was self-conscious. And then she was at the process of auditioning and going into driving through town and mom's unconditioned old car, air conditioned car and it was hot and it was stressed out. And that process of doing that over and over, she had had enough, even at five or six. She was like, she was literally in the casting room at probably a Honda commercial or something. I mean, it could have been huge. My, her mom remembers her to say, I'm going, I want to go. I'm going. And her mom going, okay, let's go. And all these parents with their kids going. Like I can't believe that you just walked out where all those other parents, you know, were in that stage parent mode. But you know, anyway, like my daughter now at the 17, she has a, you know, maybe a career in art ahead. But she could be doing voiceover and she could be doing a lot of things and fighting through the nerve of being a solo or a directed voice actor.

9:21And being listened to and analyzed. How did you get, how did you use mind over a matter to stop feeling so self-conscious about all of that and just be in the role and not worry about being judged. Yeah, it is still, it's still hard. I feel like I, I will say that counseling or therapy has helped a lot. You've got to walk through because everybody's so different in those challenges or hookups that keep them, you know, from being able to be free. You know, mine was a lot of like lack of self-esteem and feeling like I'm the oldest of four kids. And so I was always the responsible one and I want to get things right. And so then that fear of yeah, yeah. And so the fear of like not getting it right and also, I think I mentioned before, you know, I grew up in a family we did not have much money at all.

10:24My dad was an elementary school teacher at public school. My mom stayed at home. I have a young special needs brother and four kids. So we did not have a lot of money at all. And so it really was already, you know, even in middle school, I mean, I started working at nine years old. Like a black camera or? No, just a baby said. Oh, yeah, yeah. And so I think that's the other aspect that really fed into voiceover, especially when I left radio to do voiceover and on camera stuff full time. That was that was scary, you know, because I thought I don't have any backup, you know, if this doesn't go well.

11:31I've heard people say I have no other marketable skills. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did think that I was like, I don't know if I can do anything else outside of this. So you went from growing up to family, graduating was college in the cards for you? It was, I paid for it. Yeah, yeah. So I had a lot of college loans to afterwards. Yeah. What did you get in college? Yeah, I went to a small private school called Brian College outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Very small. I mean, 600 total people there. And I think looking back, I have some of the best friends from that experience. So I wouldn't trade that for the world. But I definitely would have made different choices if I could go back, you know, as far as where I go, went for college. But still a good experience. They didn't have, they didn't expect you to do any internships or anything.

12:33Yeah. But at the time, I wanted to go into television broadcasting. So I went to a weekend in DC for people that want to go into television broadcasting. Oh, yeah. And they said you need to have three internships by the time you graduate. Oh, wow, yeah. So I got four. And so, and that was really where I found radio. I did intern at a TV station and I was like, oh, this is not going to be good for me. I, because the reporter, you know, that I was with, he was great and he was just telling me all the different stories. And I thought, man, I'm not going to be able to get the story. I'm going to want to go and hug that mom that is crying over her son. Or whatever, you know, I don't think that I'm that's that sort of for it. Cold, hard stone, you're a hard thing you have to do. I, me too, there's no way I could handle. Yeah. Not a chance. Yeah. That's a special skill. So, so there was obviously, I'm going to assume it's cool that size.

13:35There was no college radio station. Oh, no. So, what was your first of experience in radio? Where did you get your foot in the door? Yeah. So, I interned at a station in Chattanooga during college. And that was where I got my foot in and learned a lot. And they were wonderful there. And because it was Chattanooga, it was a smaller station. And that's actually, they ended up hiring me after I worked at, I did the on camera job after college. They brought me back up and hired me to do nights and do some marketing. Because, you know, in radio, I don't know if most people actually know this. But all my radio people out there, they may know, is that you're always doing multiple jobs. You're not just, especially at a smaller station, you're not going to just be on air. You're going to be doing all kinds of other stuff. Totally. Yeah. What are those other things you're doing? Like, I'll be a size being on there. I'm assuming some production. Yep. Some production. I would write commercials. Writing. You know, when I was there and produced those.

14:37And then, I did a lot of marketing. Yeah, I have a lot of marketing. Yeah, marketing. Yeah, marketing. Yeah, marketing. So I would go out to, I mean, really it's sales and marketing, promotions. Appearances. Appearances. Oh, gosh, yes. Yes. And that was before technology was really good. So like, I mean, I remember I had to carry this big huge box around, you know, with the microphone. Yeah. The speaker and everything. Yeah. It was awful. And we need to have a team with you. You were doing it mostly on your own. I think a team of maybe one extra person. Yeah. It wasn't a real robust team. Oh, man, because I had radio production and engineering experience in the early 2000s. But we were the Howard Stern station. Yeah. He wasn't at our station. But I mean, we had, it was a very well-funded station at the time. Yeah. We had a team, you know, we had several people out there for the appearance. We had different support. We must have had besides me like five people, five, six people, it's almost dependent on the scale of the thing.

15:42But if it was Osfest, believe me, everybody was there. Right. Everybody wanted to be there, probably, for Osfest. Yeah. It was quite an experience, Altea. It was a wild time. But I remember it finally, because it really was a way to learn to think on your feet and solve problems and be spontaneous. So if you were doing radio and then you were doing, then you also were doing on camera around the same time. Around the same time. Right after I graduated from college, I tried to get a job in radio and I couldn't get on with the station. And so there was somebody told me they were like, oh, there's a casting call for this like cable show and they're looking for a host. And so I went and I got the job. Oh. And I mean, when I, yeah, when I say like small cable show, I mean, it's one of those ones that you're like, we need to world, you got to start somewhere. It was like a one step above wind.

16:43Yeah. I don't know. Weaseworld may be a step above. That's not like she. I called it the redneck home shopping show, which is so far from who I am. So it was very weird. I learned all kinds of stuff, like even about hunting gear and stuff that I've never known ever in my life. And some of the stuff that I had to sell was insane. Like one of the stuff, one of the things that I could not sell was a wolf teapot set. And it's not like there's like a wolf painted on the teapot or whatever. Note that teapot was in the shape of a wolf. So the tea comes out the mouth and the tail curls up at the end, you know, for the handle. And I could not sell that thing to save my life. And finally, I was like, all right, listen, do you have a cabin? Do you have a cabin that you go to or whatever hunting lodge or something like this? I mean, talk about a conversation piece. This would be perfect to have there.

17:43And it started flying off the shelves. Was it literally phone calls or would you see something on a screen saying one is like telling you like, I think it was a phone call. I mean, because this is door to mold. So this has been, you know, you don't have to be two thousand decade. But yeah, two thousand four. So yeah, over 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah. So I'm pretty sure it was just a phone call. I think I don't think there was anything else. The internet hadn't gone super wide stream. No. They're selling stuff for that phone. No, no, no, no. Oh, man, that's amazing. So it was good experience like improv. So I didn't have a script. So I did a two hour show Monday through Friday, no script. And then I would go into local businesses too and interview them if they sold like additional spots that were kind of more of like infomercials for those businesses. So that was really good experience. It just kind of threw me in the deep end. But something that I hope those tapes are not anywhere else that people can see.

18:47So somewhere in that window of time, is that when you met Mike? No, because that was only a year or so. And there was another husband in the mix before Mike. So yeah, then I was at the 104.7, the fish was at the Atlanta radio station that I ended up at eventually. And Mike did the night show and I did a split shift. So I did traffic in the morning and the afternoon. And then I could basically just fill in for any day part. And so it was when I started overlapping with the night shift that Mike and I would. Overlapped. Or whatever and overlap. And that's how, because before I knew of him, but we never really ran into each other much at the station. So yeah. Oh, that's really cool. I mean, that's just the journey. You know. You never know. And who knew all these years later that we'd have Atlanta voiceover studio together and.

19:53It's amazing. So voiceover eventually, when did voiceover take over for you? It actually took me a while. It does take a while. It takes years. It does. And, and it was one of those things where again, I, the plan wasn't to go into voiceover. It was just like, this is a great to have some supplement income because even though people may think this radio doesn't pay a ton. And, and so I thought, oh, this will be good. You know, I can get some extra spending money. So I didn't do a lot of training. And Mike helped me do my demo. I got on with my Atlanta agent. I had a small Florida agent. And then a lot of the stuff at the beginning was just direct marketing. I was on LinkedIn back then and really doing a lot. And that's how I got some of the bigger jobs that I got during that time was just through direct marketing. Yeah.

20:53And I was on with my Atlanta agent still working full time in radio for four years before I booked my first thing with him. And I kept saying like, why aren't you dropping me? Like, this is ridiculous. You know, and he said, no, you're doing good work. Just keep going, keep going, keep going. And so I did. And then once I started booking some smaller stuff, then it did just start picking up. It was like something kind of clicked. Yeah. I did do some training and that really helped. And then I think one of the first like within that year when I started booking, I booked a national TV spot, ran for three years, paid me more than I made in radio. Goddess health insurance for several years. You know, it was just amazing. And then it was like that is when my career really started taking over their voiceover. And then that after that is when things had changed at the radio station.

21:56Yeah. And I really wanted to find a different radio job, but at the time Mike and I just got married. And it was just going to be impossible to find two radio jobs in a different city. And so yeah, for people, it was like both kind of jobs. You know how it is. I always hear the radio stories about people that move from, they have to end up oftentimes moving. Yes. City to city quite a lot. And if you have a family or even a partner or whatever, that's really going to be difficult. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So Mike and you were, so you had a, did you have a head start in voice acting over Mike? Mike was still very much. No, no, he was, oh no, Mike. So we always tell this story because I think it's such a good reminder that everybody's journey is different. Yeah. And to be honest with you also, being married to a guy and me being a female, I've seen this great, I mean,

23:00it's gotten a little better of the years. Yeah. But it's like the amount of work and opportunities that he had versus how many other guys were actually in voiceover. It was like there's just hardly any competition versus me. You know, my agent would always tell me like how many female he represented and then how many female voiceover opportunities he got in, which was just crazy. It was so disproportionate. So the ratio at that time, were we talking 10 plus years ago? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is like 20 years ago. A lot of ladies in voiceover getting the voiceover or studying voiceover, but far fewer proportionate number of opportunities. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So Mike, when he first got on to that same Atlanta agent, which is Richard Hutchison Management, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful agent, he's since retired. But Mike booked his first job within a week. So I think it's a good reminder that like you cannot look at somebody else's voiceover, like, you know, trajectory and compare yourself because it's just different for everyone.

24:09Absolutely. And just the message I hear over and over is just perseverance and believing that you have something to offer and confidence. And that is going to, that's the gate. That's the ultimate gatekeeping. Yes. It's not the casting people and all the other, it's yourself that you're at the ability to push through all that. That's not everybody has that. I don't think I have that. That's really impressive. Because of Atlanta voiceover studio, we see all these people come through classes and we see the type of people that end up actually creating a full time career from this. And it's not the most talented. And I'm not saying that they don't have talent, the people that succeed, but it's not all one thing. You have to be very well rounded. If you have talent and you don't, you can't persevere, you're not going to make it. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we might as well talk a little bit about voice, the studio.

25:10I mean, when did, when, what was the genesis of the studio? It's so crazy because I mean, it truly happened like five years after, you know, I left radio. And Mike left right after me. He could have left before that because he was making a full time. He was making more in voiceover than he was in radio. But I think he was nervous, you know, you're always nervous to make that jump in the leap. Burning, you feel like you made Burn of Bridge. You made it. Yeah. Have that opportunity again. Right. Yeah. And he actually got let go. So that helped the decision. And, but he was, I mean, he was fine. And even that year after he let go, like if, I don't know if this is encouraging to anybody, but I mean, that year it was like just job after job dropped in his lap. And so for those that are scared, you don't hold on too tightly because you have no idea what will happen if you let go and just jump.

26:16Yeah, that's a real morale booster though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. You're like, okay, okay, maybe, you know, maybe we're going to be okay. But so we have, you know, I'm coming to you from my booth here at the house. We had built out to studio at our house. And so we were doing stuff from our home. But man, I am such a people person. And so I was like, Mike, I hate not seeing people anymore. Like in radio, I saw people every day and we could go to events and everything. And so a friend of ours had a soundstage studio that he was opening up. And he had some spaces open. And Mike was like, well, why don't we just like rent one of the small spaces we'll create an outside studio because a lot of our on camera actors, the challenges that they faced, were they would get voice over additions because they had on camera, you know, agents.

27:17And so it was like, one, seven, three months or so. Right. And so, yeah. And for them to try and set up something to record and their kitchen, you know, or I mean, it was just such a hassle. Yeah. And so so many people said that they felt like they couldn't take advantage of the opportunities because they didn't have a studio. So we thought, okay, maybe what we could do is set up an outside studio. We can offer that, especially to our on camera friends. We come in to record their auditions and that way they didn't miss out on it. Sure. We should be able to at least cover their rent and that. Heidi can see people. And everybody would be happy. He wouldn't hear me complain anymore. And so that's what we did. And Mike was the one that came up with Atlanta Voice Server Studio as the name, which was brilliant because of SEO. SEO and just going, wow, nobody else took the name. Yeah, no one else did. Yeah.

28:17So we did that. And I mean, it was like a hundred square foot space, George. Yeah. But because we named it that, we started getting calls, especially because Atlanta, you know, is a big place for people to film. Oh, yeah. And so there were celebrities that were in town that they're like, hey, you know, this celebrity is going to be in there. We need to record them for big hero six or whatever. Can you record them? And I said, yes. And Mike said, no. He freaked out. I'm the yes person. He's the no person. I was like, Mike, we just do this. We do it for our own sessions. Like, why can't we do it for them? And he's like, because we're not sound design engineers. So we make, we're a good balance, you know, we're going to make the opportunities. Mike gets like, yeah, but the reality check. Yeah. I know that's still. Yeah. Yeah. So we did that and we were covering the rent. And then people started asking us, oh, do you do demos?

29:18Do you do classes? Do you do workshops? And I'm like, no, we don't. And we tried to like refer them to other places. There's only one other place at the time in Atlanta that had just opened up, but there were some issues with, I think, some communication and stuff. Some people were a little frustrated. They were put off. Yeah. And yeah. And I just thought, well, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, and I just thought, well, I, I'm not a teacher. I've only been doing this full time for five years. Like, I just did not feel confident at all. Like, I should be teaching. Right. And that was when Brian Bremer, who is a voiceover colleague of ours in Atlanta, he messaged us and said, hey, I'm already doing this intro workshop. Would you want me to do it for your studio? And we're like, well, people actually are asking. So maybe we just do it. See, see the response. And so he did. He came in and taught. And it sold out in like minutes. And so then we started going, okay, now, so we did that for a little while.

30:21And then people were asking, like, for more training and more. So I was like, okay, well, maybe we'll just do something that's kind of like, come in, work through scripts and, you know, you know, you're struggling. You found a need. Yeah. Yeah. And we're going to be the ones to fill it. And yeah. And we just, I still felt so inadequate. But I will say that once we started kind of teaching, I thought, oh, I love this helping other people. Like, I saw the light bulbs come on. I think I hadn't realized even our own careers, what they had become at that point. And then like, oh, I could help somebody else have the same, you know, successful career. I think there's a stigma against saying that you can't teach something unless you've got some X number of years of experience or whatever. Because it's not, that's not how it works. You first have to be a good teacher. Yeah. And that's a whole skill and a bit of self. And that's a whole skill in itself. I'm sure you channeled your father in some ways or, you know, learn from watching him.

31:26And I know I grew up teaching summer science camps and doing weekend science things. And teaching kids, I didn't know I was going to teach. I mean, I didn't think of myself as a teacher bizarrely. I didn't go to college thinking about teaching. I thought about engineering. And now it's here. I am teaching people over and over how to do all this stuff. And you just, it's just in, it's in there. But yeah, that's the, that's the, I don't know, elitism, stigma, whatever it is that you shouldn't be teaching something unless you've got some massive numbers of years. But no, you just need to, you need to be a good teacher. I needed to know more than the people you're teaching so that you can take them to the next step. And then when you're a really good teacher, those people you're teaching and you can tell me you've had these happen, they're outpacing your career. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You've watched it happen, right? Oh, 100%. Yeah. I've coached people that are making like, I mean, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, like every year.

32:27And, you know, I'm like, yeah, I'm not at that point. So, yeah. That's what happens. Yeah. And then the people to let that go and I later ego be completely envious of them and let that, you know, somehow ruin your magic, you know? Yeah. No, and I think at this point, and I've been in this for so long, you start to just realize like what's for you is for you. And, you know, there are just sometimes too. There are some voices that are just hot and they're going to book a ton and I can see it where it's like, yeah, that's not competition. That's just who they are. And, yeah, all I can do is control my own career and control what I can do for my career. Well, speaking of that, I mean, what are some, you know, some things that you think of fondly, the some wins that you've had in your voice over career that stand out? Oh, gosh.

33:27So many, I mean, you know, it's so funny because I'm sure you've talked to other people and voice talent, like one of the things that I learned early on, especially with on camera stuff too, it's like you got to do it and forget it because otherwise it'll just wreck you. But I have gotten so skilled at that that many times I forget about what I actually book. Yeah. I love that. I hear that all the time. I wouldn't, I wouldn't remember or like people will be like, Hey, is that your voice and there? I'm like, Oh, did I do that? Oh, yeah, I guess I did do that. I totally forgot. That's crazy. That's true. So, yeah, so I will say that, you know, I don't know, every year I will say that there's always new things that pop up that I get really excited about that. I'm like, Oh, my gosh. This is amazing. I just did a big campaign for Mrs. Myers for the commercial.

34:32It was a great session. I love the product. Like that makes me happy when I get to voice a product that I love. I am the voice for this Crystal Coast Tourism campaign, which, you know, is really cool. It's just an amazingly paid job too, which is just great. Yeah. And then I had, I was on with auto nation for it would be nine years this fall. And that is huge. Those types of clients don't always come around, but it's such a blessing. And it was directed sessions. Keep coming back. Keep coming back every month I would have. I would, it was kind of like we had a rush for the first half of the month. And I just had to like be ready to jump in the booth, you know, within an hour or so. But they just changed a bunch of their branding. And so I was like, Oh, this year. I was about to ask you. I mean, I didn't want to, I don't want to be negative, but I just, you know, the full

35:34spectrum of voiceover. Yes. You know, you've, have you ever been in a place where you realize that a majority of your income might be, maybe it was coming from one client and then they go, poof. Yeah. I mean, that, that was auto nation. It's not, you know, with them going, it's not, I'm fine, but not the majority is a good, it was a really good, probably a third of my income or so. Okay. That's not as dangerous. Some times it's worse than that. And Mike and I are very conservative like with our money and spending and saving and everything. So that definitely helps. We don't, we try not to have any debt. Cautious. But that was huge. And I thought, and I knew that it could happen at any time. Yeah. Yeah. But, but I will tell you that ever since then, I've booked several, like commercial jobs that have more than doubled what I would have made from auto nation for the rest of the year. So it is something to wear.

36:37If you're in this industry long enough and I feel like if you set a good foundation for your career, things like that, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, things like this will happen. They are going to be inevitable. You're going to find a great client. They're going to be consistent and then that goes away, but something else opens up. It just, it happens and just... And you have to be ready for it not happening right away. Maybe it takes a couple of months or... Totally. Yeah. Yeah. So the Atlanta VoiceOver Studio, how is that working into your schedule? How do you continue to balance family, your, you know, all the things and the business and your voice acting? It is extremely hard. Because you know, you have the business too. Because you know, Mike and I, we do have our voiceover and on camera, you know, careers and then we also have Atlanta VoiceOver Studio. And Atlanta VoiceOver Studio probably takes up, you know, 50% of our week's time, but

37:43yet we get like financially, that's, I don't even know the math to describe, but we get a small stipend and we just started taking a stipend over the past couple years. That if we lost it, it would literally impact our finances zero. So that is hard and that was, that's something that Mike and I kind of made a mistake at the beginning of our, the business doing. And if we had done things differently, that wouldn't be the case. One, you know, there's a guy named, he has Michael, or, Cal, I'll shoot, I'm not going to remember his name, so there's no point in me even buturing it. But he talks about his philosophy as profit first. Do you see a coach or an author? Yeah, he's a business coach, he's an author and a business coach. And he started multiple businesses and he's always says you've got it profit first.

38:46And he says pay yourself first before anything. And we did not do that with Atlanta VoiceOver Studio because we kept growing and we kept wanting to put it back in people. And the whole reason we did it anyways is to help people. And so that was kind of our motivating factor. But the problem is, is that then when Mike and I do stuff and we don't pay ourselves, you can't find someone else to take your place because nobody's going to work for free. Good point, that's right. So if anyone starts a business, like even with VoiceOver, you know, like make sure that you're paying yourself first because it's so easy, it's as your business scales, that is really helps you to motivate you to scale your business because you know that that's going to increase as your business increases. And then also you just can't find someone to delegate to if you're not paying yourself

39:50because nobody's going to do it for free. Good point. Good point. So your studio, as you know, you've had some changes over the years and how your studio, so it started as a 100 square feet. What happened after the 100 square foot space? And then we moved across the hall to, I think it was 400, 700? I think part of it was 400 and then the other, there's like two rooms, so it was 700 square foot. And then we moved to a 3200 square foot space. We count, like exponentially you guys expanded. Yes. Right before COVID, and we hired a sound design engineer. Finally, because I was, I really was like, okay, you're right, Mike, like we cannot record. Like there were bigger clients that were coming to ask asking to record and I was like, we can't do this. So we do need to hire a sound design engineer. So we hired a sound design engineer, the fall right of 2019 and then COVID happened.

40:55And none of our classes were 100% in person. And then COVID happened and we were able to take them all virtually and that saved so much. But we had just hired this engineer and we did not want to let her go. Thankfully, the virtual option opened up so much because there were so many people that followed us online and that weren't in Atlanta. And so they couldn't take our classes. And of course, everyone was interested in voiceover through COVID. And so our classes just grew and the training just grew. And so because of that, we were able to cover our sound design engineer, her salary during that time. And the rent of the studio space. And the rent of the studio, which was so expensive. I was to say, were you even able to use the studio space much and all during the pandemic? Okay. Not a lot. No, I mean, very rarely it was just.

41:55Is it a place to get your mail? Yeah, yeah. And Mike and I had our, we had our own offices there and we had booths there. So that did help because we were able to go in ourselves because we were, it was just just, um, and do our stuff. So it just kind of helped us to get out of the house. But other than that, yeah, it was pretty desolate. So you, you, you, you hung in there. We did and we learned a lot from it. And I didn't get to make sourdough bread during that time, but I have, I didn't either. I made up for time. So I just started. Did you get it? Like I'm going to get my sourdough bread in. I'm doing what they were all doing. You know, I think I had the dissolution in March of 2020 that, oh, okay. I'm going to get a little bit of downtime that I never get. You know, I'm just going to coast for a little bit. No. And you were busier than ever, I bet. Yeah.

42:56It was not stop, right? I thought, I thought I'd be, frankly, I thought it would be a little busier than I was, but I was busy and I was plenty busy. Not too busy that I couldn't take an occasional trip or vacation. But, you know, I was, yeah, it definitely, I think 2021 was our peak year historically, ever. Wow. Like we've never matched that number. So yeah, that was, that was a weird thing as a small business was correcting for that. Because you're trying to see trends. Are we growing? Yes. And then like my business has been, it's such a weird trend. It's not like this trend like this. Right. And then, so when the pandemic happened and then they went like, like, the straight up, I'm doing all these gestures and I'm realizing you guys are only hearing me. But when the good up, I'm pointing up, it's sound effects though. You know, that really was like holy smokes.

43:56And then it corrected in 2023, I think really was when it just went down off a cliff. So yeah, when you mention being conservative, being careful with your money and not doing extravagant things because all of a sudden you have money coming and that's a huge skill to learn. Yeah. Really, really important. It's taking me many years to stabilize and do better at putting money aside for certain things. I had a huge client pull out of a job once. It was the biggest deposit I'd ever collected. I didn't insist on the deposit being non-refundable in advance or have them sign. It was based on, you know, some personal relationships and the person came back and said, this project is just not happening. Can I get my money back? I could have spent that money, you know, or I could have invested it somewhere and lost some of it. But no, I put it in a high yield savings and it was there when I needed it.

44:56That was a big, adulting moment for me. Yeah, great job, very. That was really art. What do you do to when things get so busy because there are times where you do need to bring on other people to help? My fear is always like, well, how long is this going to last? Because if it doesn't last, I'm also going to not be able to use those people and I really care about people. I don't want to be able to give people stability, you know? Oh, I know. You want to. That's a hard. You can want to do it. You can want to give people stability all day long, but you just have to be real and realize that you can't really. It's so true. Yeah. I have one person that works with me, Billy Jo Kohns, and she does a lot of stuff. You so awesome. Yeah. She's working as much as she'd put in more hours if I let her, honestly. Right. Recently, I had to throttle her back, which is not easy to do. You don't want to because she's so productive, but you're like, okay, we got to, we got

45:58to hold it back a little bit. But everybody else though, like, yeah, everybody else that when they work for us, it's a gig. You know, they're just doing a gig, you know? Yeah. It's, I feel very lucky that they're willing to work with me on such an unbelievably sporadic basis. And then we had to build systems in so that can work for their life styles. Yes. And we have to work on the way they like to work. Like one person hates having an automated schedule. He will not do the Google Calendar blah, blah, blah. All right. Fine. You're willing to be on call then? Yeah. I'll do on call. Awesome. Wow. He's on call. I hate on call. Yeah. Yeah. I hate everybody's emergency being my problem. It's stressing out. Right. Cordless all of all that stuff. Yeah. I trigger. So I have now found people. So now all these years I've spent finding backup to me. I go back to, it goes back many years to even the 2010s when I was interviewing people in

47:05Manhattan. I'll never forget booking, just booking interviews at a book, Porter's bookstore in Manhattan and having people come in an interview with me to be a backup, somebody in Manhattan. Wow. And that didn't pan out. But it did, I did already start looking at supplementing my team. So I wasn't the guy. But yeah, that's a huge part is just having people that are understanding and flexible as to what the role really is. And then when the job does come, make sure they're being really compensated. They make sure they're being compensated really well or really fairly. So it is worth the initial hassle. Being a part of this team. You're like, all right, this is the website. It's crazy. You're going to have to understand how to use it. You're going to have to do this. You're going to have to do that. And it's just not everybody's going to play ball. And you learn a lot to the process. But it's been rewarding. I'm just having a team that can take a load off of me. I'm still the number one call on everything though.

48:08Like almost everything. There's only one thing where I'm like, I'm not number one call. And that's Windows. Yeah. If it's anything Windows related, Mike McGonagle is the guy. I have a separate booking thing just for Mike to get booked from Windows related stuff. So what's happening right now that you'd like people to know about at the Atlanta Voice over Studio? What are the programs that are running through the summer and really feeling like getting a lot of traction? Well, now we do still offer a lot of stuff in person. But everything always has a virtual component to it too. So like our intro. So yeah, people in Studio and on remote all same time. Yes. Good for you. For the majority of things. Not everything. But we have a really good like our audiobook track is doing so well. So we have an audiobook foundations class that if you're just like, oh, I want to get

49:09started into audiobooks, not sure how to do that. That's the class for you. And then we have an audiobook performance class. After that, that is so good. It's taught by Casey Holloway. And she's a director of audiobooks. She's an audiobook narrator. We have somebody from audiobook casting come into that class too. So you can talk to them and hear them. So that's really good. And then Julie Wilson, who's casting director of Penguin Random House. She's one of the co-creators of A-Hab, which is like kind of like an audiobook casting platform. Okay. And so she's doing a branding workshop for us for audiobooks in the fall. And then we've also got a lot of great animation workshops that are coming up. We've got John Morris, who played Andy in Toy Story. So he's going to be doing an animation workshop for us at the end of July.

50:11And it's only $50, which I was just like, John, want to charge more. We always say we kind of have this rule that if like outside instructors come to us, that they have to charge the same amount for the same content that they do somewhere else. Because we feel like that's not fair to other people. Like if they come in and do it less for us. That feels like it's undercutting another studio. And you know, we just want to make sure that like we're doing everything with integrity. Yeah, ethics, it's an ethics thing. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so he's doing that for only $50, which is amazing. It's going to be some great content and great learning. And then Ariana Ratner also teaches with us. Oh, cool. She's amazing. Yeah, she's amazing. I've known her since she was a teenager. Oh, I bet she's incredible with her dad. Yeah. Yeah. And she's just man, she's made a name for herself and such a great instructor. Everyone that comes through her class just raves about her.

51:15So yeah, we've got all kinds of stuff and we've got the foundational training. But then we also have, you know, specialty, we do demos. We are offering like a really special demo price because we just celebrated 10 years. Oh, nice. Yeah. I just had a big anniversary celebration. And so now through the end of like October, we're offering our demos for $1,100. And so our commercial demos. So yeah, just in celebration of that and to give people like as much of a discount as we can possibly. Is that you and Mike team effort doing the demo? Me and Mike, yep. And then we also have Jill Perry, who's one of our instructors and I kind of trade and turn in the script writing and yeah, we do that. That's another thing that like working in radio really helped Mike and I. Because Mike actually was a copywriter for radio when he was in there.

52:16So he's on air and he also is a copywriter. And and so we started doing that at the very beginning and just going well, we'll just try and see and we keep, you know, talking to agents, making sure that what we're doing is what they're looking for and stuff and and it's been great. And we we really love doing that. We love showcasing people and their voices. How do you know when somebody is ready? So we have what we have a evaluation process. So there's three main things that we ask people that they can do and then we have them actually do it on the evaluation and record. One is knowing their range like as far as like and we're talking about commercial demos. But knowing what they can do specs wise with their sweet spots are. And so they'll have to do several different scripts in different specs and record them for us. And so we make sure that they sound different and that's authentic to them. And then also that they can do one line of copy three different ways.

53:20And then another line of copy three different energy levels. That's like our recording process. And we do that because what we want to do is like if you're going to come and do our demo, we want if you books a job tomorrow, we want you to be able to shine in that book session. And so we know what the client's going to ask and we want to make sure that you can do that so that they become a repeat client. That's absolutely important. Yeah. So much more to ask you, but it would all border on your coaching. And so people really should just if you've got a lot more questions about building a voice over a career, this is a great resource for you. Heidi and the team over it. Atlanta Voice over Studio you should go check them out. The website is Atlanta Voice over Studio dot com. And your website is Heidi Roo. And that's like you like ill within our in front of it. HeidiRoo dot com. That was never used against you in grade school.

54:20Ever. I'm sure. No. More rooster rooster. Oh really? Oh, okay. Good. Awesome. Well, I'm really glad you could hang out with me today. Thank you so much. And so good to see you again. Thank you so much. Always great to see you. Thank you for all that you do. Like and yeah, we just appreciate you so much. We refer so many people to you. So thank you for what you do. You guys were all thank you and say hi to Mike. Okay. You want to meet for the conversation. So this is George the tech for the performer friendly podcast. I hope you liked it. If you did, will you please tell anybody that you know to listen to it because you know podcasts go into the ether and into the into the atmosphere. So please tell a friend and let them know you like the show and leave us any comment on whatever platform you're using and give us some ratings. Give us some stars on Apple. I never ever asked for this stuff. I'm doing it right now. Do it. Do it. We got Rob. We got Rob now editing the show and Rob is not he's not free nor should he be and I want

55:22to make sure that we keep the show sustaining because he's awesome to have on board. So anyway, it's great to have you. Thanks Heidi. Take care. Thanks George. Thanks George. George the tech.