Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Anna Collins. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Anna thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

VO Atlanta is one of a handful of conferences that are designed specifically for professional voice actors/voiceover artists, and those looking to enter the field.

While every conference in the industry offers value to their attendees, what VO Atlanta does a little bit differently is that we are able to reinvest a larger proportion of our proceeds into the event, which substantially enhances the on-the-ground experience for attendees. This is a function of the fact that VO Atlanta is just one of the numerous businesses, (including several event-based businesses,) that our company manages, in addition to my husband, J. Michael Collins’ career as a top voice actor, coach, and voiceover demo producer. What that means is that, while we are still obviously trying to make a profit, there’s not the need for this event to be a cash cow in order to keep our lights on. So, we’re able to offer premium lunches to attendees, coffee and tea stations free of charge, and lounges that are designed to maximize their comfort, similar to premium lounges that airlines offer. We look at VO Atlanta as a premium experience for our attendees, and we think that, and the content, sets us apart.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My background is pretty eclectic. I was an adventurous teen, and wound up doing three seasons on a fishing boat in Alaska and then working for an aid organization in the Balkans during the war all before I hit 25. I’ve never been one to sit still.

In my mid-twenties I entered the corporate world, first in real estate development and later telecommunications, always in roles that focused on logistics and planning. Eventually I climbed the latter to a position overseeing global facilities for a telecom services provider that was known at the time as MACH, and was traveling frequently to Europe and the Middle East to help open new offices and run other logistics projects.

I left the corporate world when we decided to start a family seven years ago, and pretty quickly realized that while our new son was my whole world, I needed a professional purpose as well. That was when the idea of the luxury retreats that we hold for voice actors in Europe began to take shape, and even though the voiceover industry was my husband’s area of expertise at that time, I knew that my skill set would dovetail well with an events business.

The EURO VO Retreats are intimate gatherings of roughly a dozen voiceover artists who are looking to take their careers to the next level. We bring in a handful of elite teachers and casting professionals, people like Kristin Paiva, who casts cartoons for Disney, Debi Derryberry, the voice of Jimmy Neutron, Randy Thomas, who has been the voice of the Academy Awards numerous times, and is the voice of Nightline, talent agents from top New York and LA agencies like CESD, DPN, Atlas, SBV, Coast to Coast, and the list goes on.

For a week, our small group of attendees gets to live with and learn from these masters of the industry, whether at a private villa in Barcelona with sea views and a private chef, the luxurious Kildare Club in Dublin, an iconic hotel on the banks of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, a sprawling Downton Abbey-like Chateau in Normandy, or a stunning country resort in the Netherlands that has hosted the President of the United States, our guests soak up an all-inclusive experience that involves elite learning, quality Champagne, and sumptuous dining experiences. We find that this setting allows for bonding that is rare in our industry, and helps attendees build friendships and mentorships with people who can help guide them on their career path.

Then, in 2021, as in-person events started to become a thing again with the arrival of covid vaccines, we developed a partnership with the One Voice Conference USA, in Dallas, which is the second biggest conference in the industry, after VO Atlanta. Due to travel restrictions, we found ourselves running this event on our own, as our partners are based in the UK and were unable to travel to the USA. We learned we would be responsible for everything on the ground only weeks before the event, so we had to rally.

Keep in mind, this was the first voiceover industry event to return to an in-person format since the start of the pandemic, and the pressure was on to put on a great show and manage health and liability issues at the same time.

Thankfully, with our team of assistants and volunteer staff, it came off remarkably well, and our several hundred attendees were able to experience the joy of an industry that runs on community and camaraderie once again. We also managed to execute the first live awards show with a full audience in our industry since the start of the pandemic, the One Voice Awards USA, which are fast becoming the industry standard for awards that are free to enter and free to win. Best of all, to our knowledge, nobody got sick, which demonstrated to the rest of the industry that events could be held safely and responsibly once again.

In 2022, the opportunity to acquire VO Atlanta, the 800-pound gorilla of voiceover conferences, presented itself after years of casual discussion with its previous ownership. After our experiences with the EURO VO Retreats, and the One Voice Conference USA and One Voice Awards USA, which we continue to partner with, we felt ready to assume the mantle of running the industry’s largest event, and carrying the responsibility of an annual gathering that has become immensely meaningful to our community and industry.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

One of the hallmarks of all of our businesses is quality. Anna Collins Events has the motto, “Quality. Detail. Exceptional.” My husband’s motto for his personal brand is, “When Quality Matters.”

We don’t believe in settling for less. Too often in today’s corporate world we find the envelope being pushed aggressively with regard to how little service providers can get away with while still vacuuming up every piece of change from their customers’ pockets. We see it with airlines and tiny seats that treat people like cattle, and hotels that used the pandemic as an excuse to do away with daily housekeeping and room service. Corporations are trying to teach people to lower their expectations. We are defying that message.

What helps our brands secure their place in our industry is that we’d rather make a little less money than leave a client with a mediocre experience. To us, this is just how things should be.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

We try to practice the same approach with our team that we do with our customers. We expect them to perform at a high level, but we try to reward them for doing so. If the margin between a coach ticket and a first class ticket isn’t crazy, they get to sit up front on business travel. They stay in the same hotels we do, even if that’s a 5-star property, and we try to pay team members and contractors market rates for their work, with bonuses for excellent performance being common.

Most of the people who work for us are also involved in our industry as voice actors, and part of our mission is helping them to outgrow their positions with us by finding their own careers in the industry. When one of our team moves on to bigger and better things, that’s a win for us.

Contact Info:

• Website: voatlanta.me
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