We recently connected with Tom Dheere and have shared our conversation below.
Tom, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?
Yes! I’ve been able to earn a full-time living from my creative work for almost fifteen years now. It wasn’t easy getting here and it’s not easy staying here, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
My voice over journey started in the mid-1990s. I was a recent theater graduate and I wasn’t sure what to do with my life.
In the back of a local magazine, my mom saw an advertisement for a local voice-over coach. She asked me what voiceover is and I wasn’t exactly sure. I took 6 months of classes, produced a voice over demo, and started cold calling immediately.
From day one it was scary and frustrating and hard to understand.
As time went by, I learned more and more that I knew less and less about the voiceover industry.
I had two major steps; one was getting fired from my full-time job which kept me from making excuses about moving my voiceover career forward. The other was attending my first voiceover conference. As a result of that experience, I learned that I deserve to be successful as both a voice actor and a human being.
What could have sped up the process? Not making decisions based on ego, insecurity, ignorance, and fear. In the 90’s they were very few voiceover resources apart from managers, casting directors, and agents, some of which wanted nothing more than to take your money. I was taken by multiple coaches and agents whom I gave the money to teach me the “secrets” of the voice-over business and I learned virtually nothing.
Tom, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I got into the voice-over industry originally as a theater major. I graduated with a BFA in acting from Montclair State University, then I spent one year at the national Shakespeare Conservatory in New York City. After one year at NSC I dropped out for a bunch of reasons which are too silly to get into but the transition to voice acting from a performance point of view felt right for me.
I’m really proud that I’m a voice actor making any money at all and having any accomplishments at all! This is a difficult industry to learn & develop your skills and understand everything you need to know to be an effective voice actor. Everything from marketing strategies to how to file your taxes.
What I want people to know about me as a voice actor is that I’m a storyteller. I love telling stories and it’s not necessarily ‘Once Upon a Time’ stuff. All of it is storytelling and I am thrilled to tell anybody’s story, even if it’s a 15-second radio spot for a Big Bob’s Used Car Lot. I want to do it I can’t wait to do it. It’s fun, it’s genuinely fun!
My brand as a voice actor is Tom Dheere…The H is Silent, But I’m Not! My branding tells you who you’re going to work with as a human. I’m silly and I love to talk! I would like to think I’m personable, affable, amiable, amicable, any of those ables. I want to do everything I can to bring your story to life. To seek your truth, to seek your clients’ truth.
As the VO Strategist, my mission is to help voice actors of all experience levels navigate the voiceover industry and teach them not to make the mistakes that I did.
To be an effective artist inside the recording booth, you need to be an effective business outside of the recording booth. You need to learn effectiveness as a voice actor because it’s not just about talent. There’s lots of talented people out there but few effective people, especially considering all of the logistical, technical, and financial challenges in front of all aspiring voice actors.
Nobody is going to make you successful. Nobody is going to make your phone ring. Only you can do that. As the VO Strategist (which I consider my karmic penance), it’s my way of paying it forward in the voiceover industry because of all the wonderful people that I’ve met on my journey that helped me.
It’s my mission to help other people find their way through this wonderful, bizarre, highly frustrating yet highly fulfilling vocation.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
There are many, many books that have been a huge influence on me and my journey as a voice actor but for brevity’s sake I’ll give you three.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Oh and I’ll give you a bonus, Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin.
All of these books taught me how to develop my systems of thought as a voice actor. How to meta-cognate, the ability to stand outside of myself and objectively look at the way I think about myself, the voiceover industry, and my relationship to it.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
The first thing society needs to do is stop dismissing and devaluing us.
Society thinks you have to work hard to be a doctor but you have to get lucky to be an actor. Are you kidding me?! This drives me absolutely bonkers.
To become a doctor there’s a very clear path, a system, a structure that tells you exactly what you need to do and be and have.
In the performing arts in general and in voice-overs in particular there is nothing like that. We have to figure it out as we go along. Make it up as we go along. Improvise, adapt, evolve, and constantly re-examine ourselves and the industry, making constant changes to the way we think and the way we do things to have any chance at success.
To make things even harder, TV shows like American Idol and movies like A Chorus Line are very damaging to us culturally both externally and internally. The ‘God I hope I get it’ and ‘if you’re not a star you’re a loser’ mentality sets up more performing artists for failure than anything else. We need to perceive ourselves as entrepreneurs who are responsible for our own careers who must understand that success is a result of internal forces, not external forces.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.vostrategist.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dheeretom/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VOStrategist
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomdheere/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TomDheere
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@vostrategist