We recently connected with Diana Birdsall and have shared our conversation below.
Diana, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to start by getting your thoughts on what you are seeing as some the biggest trends emerging in your industry.
In Voiceover, trends are incredibly important to pay attention to. While most people want to skip past the commercials on TV and Radio, great voice actors are often glued to them studying the style and tones. Before the pandemic, commercials were brighter and conversational. 2020 & 2021 were solem, heartfelt and concerned. Today, they are trending back towards conversational and light hearted as the world gets back on track.
eLearning is definitely becoming much more prevalent with so many people working from home. Companies are creating more exciting ways to train their people, so this avenue has been growing steadily and will be a mainstay for years to come.
Video Games are exploding! With people at home so much more, they are seeking entertainment that is interactive and keeps their minds moving. There are so many more opportunities for actors to work from home instead of needing to be in L.A. to be a part the gaming world. This genre has opened up wide and far. Exciting for sure!
AI is crashing our party but I believe this will be for the lower tiers of voice over. Personally, it drives me crazy to listen to Automated Phone Messaging and makes me want to call the company including my own Veterinarian and offer to do the VO just so I don’t have to listen to bad voiceover. People want and crave personalization, but, this trend is here to stay for the sake of company budgets.
Happily, Corporate Videos are making a biggersplash this year and incorporating more and more voiceover. In the past, you would find lots of explainer and corporate videos without a voice. Now, with studies confirming that people pay more attention and get interested when a voice is attached to the story, voice actors are getting much more traction. Yay!
Coaching! So very smart and will get you booked much faster than sending in work before you jump into the fierce talent pool. I work with students who know that to get booked, they’ve got to find their sweet spot and work on genres that fit their skills. I’m so encouraged that people looking to get into this biz, are taking the right steps in the right order to find work.
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
How did I get here?
I was born wanting to perform but didn’t want to be in front of the camera. Commercial Production and Creative Directing jobs got my feet wet in voice acting. I recorded somewhere around a thousand commercials in my years working in Television Production, so it was a natural transition into full time voice acting. I started with one online casting site, which helped me work with a myriad of clients before getting on several agent rosters.
How else did I find work?
An explosion of direct marketing got me on all kinds of production house rosters. Now, I focus on reaching out and creating relationships with people who can and need to hire me. The amazing transformation in my world with Voiceover Business is that I help clients all around the world. Most often I record Commercials, Corporate Videos, Explainer Videos, eLearning, Documentaries, Dubbing for Netflix shows and Phone Messaging Systems. Everyday is new and different!
Making sure every client gets a voice that is perfect for their project is essential. Making sure I respond immediately, communicate often and deliver audio files quickly and perfectly is what makes my business run smoothly. I think that loving people and having fun with my clients is one of the reasons I’ve had this level success. Making people laugh and have a good time while working is a blast and I love it everyday.
A lot of my work is helping clients find their style, tone and sometimes helping hone their scripts for not only a national, but a global audience. With Social Media companies being such a huge platform for businesses to get their message out, being a relatable and trustworthy voice is always key.
Having a nice voice is just one part of the puzzle. You have to be a solopreneur, meaning that you must do all your own marketing, admin, editing and most of all … Customer Service. If there is anything that makes me stand apart, it’s how well I treat my clients. No one is ever left waiting for their audio mostly because I’m a ‘get it done now’ type of person. Everyone is treated like the president of the company!
What am I proud of?
*The power to affect an audience. Make them feel, make them move, make them buy a product, help them learn.
*So proud of my body of work including projects for Dove, Deloit, Amazon, LG, Dunkin’Donuts, AT&T and thousands of others.
*Coaching new and veteran talent in performance and business takes me over the moon. Giving back to the world we live in and paying all the help I’ve received over the years forward makes my heart sing.
What else am I proud of?
*Two OneVoice Nominations
*12 Telly Awards.
Woot!
In the end, I’m a Voice you can trust with Customer Service you’ll love.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
Interestingly, the public at large think voiceover is ‘just talking’. You’re just talking right? Nope, I’m performing in a way that sounds like I’m just talking.
For most people, getting in front of a microphone is beyond scary. Hearing the sound of your own voice back at you will send some running from the room! I’ve seen it many times. Being a professional voice actor takes experience, training, and a love for telling other people’s stories in every genre. From Commercials to Training Videos to Video Games, I’ve got to change my approach, style, tone, pitch, accent and make it all believable to the target audience.
And then over course, you add in the business part of the business. Marketing, Admin, Social Media, Research, Customer Service, Website, Blogging.
Nope, it’s not just talking.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Goodness Gracious!
You want to talk about rejection? Voice actors are rejected every single day. On average, a voice actor will audition for 100 jobs and only book one of those. We hear, “The client is going in another direction”, or , “The client is going with a male/female voice instead”, or “Your voice didn’t match the sound we are looking for”. And 99% of the time, we won’t hear anything at all.
How do I handle all that rejection?
Standing firm in the knowledge that I am talented, run a successful business, and realizing that I wasn’t the right voice for that particular job, but I will be for another one. And I am! Let me tell you, its not the easiest thing in the world working in a padded room by yourself every day. But its FABULOUS when client book you over and over again because you have exactly the voice they need for their brand, their eLearning, their video of any kind.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.dianabirdsall.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dianabirdsallvo/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/diana.p.birdsall
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianabirdsallvo/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DianaBirdsallVO
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9XKJPgoyJ5kmPs_KYY_yPuDe8upZaXnV
Image Credits
CeCe Canton