voice over

Narrated Virtual Tours, A Good Idea?

August 24, 2022 by PrincessSarah

Have you ever wondered how you could make your virtual tours more memorable, so as to give you a competitive edge? Professional voice over narration can beautifully complement your video content, converting a simple, silent (or non-professionally narrated) movie to a powerful story about a property that’s waiting for your viewer to buy it.

Your domestic and international clientele can’t always come to see your high-end properties. Did you know that some of your best leads can be obtained with a compelling and professionally narrated virtual tours? Are you comfortable with the idea that some of your most viable prospects are remote buyers who hope (or expect) to see a polished, professionally narrated video of your best real estate inventory before they travel to see it in person?

8 Reasons Why Narrated Virtual Tours (NVTs) are a good idea:

1. Expand Your Reach

Virtual tours allow real estate professionals to increase the number of potential buyers exponentially. Gone are those days when real estate business was only locally transacted.

Technology has changed everything. Doing business in real estate hasn’t been shielded from the revolution of technology. The playing field for brokers has undoubtedly broadened and, with it, so has the opportunity.

The most successful realtors and real estate professionals make savvy choices to market properties to a broader audience and with less effort. And it’s those investing in narrated virtual tours who are finding those precious inches that separate them from the competition. These creative thinkers have a growth mindset (not a fixed one). It gives them a willingness to try something new to satisfy their clientele and get the job done even in a volatile market.

2. Increase Your Chance of Selling.

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), when done correctly, virtual tours dramatically increase a property’s chance of being sold. NAR’s research revealed that virtual property tours help buyers decide to purchase faster. It is said that 40% of buyers reporting that virtual tours were “very useful” when looking to purchase a home.

When buyers can take virtual tours of houses they are interested in, they are more likely to make an offer on the house, and faster. (Realty Times, 2020)

Notably, the article from Realty Times uses the words “when done correctly,” which alludes to a number of things, including the quality of the imagery used to create the virtual tour. I would like to suggest that, in order to be “done correctly,” a virtual tour should also be narrated.

Right or wrong, the 21^st century has ushered in a flood of distractions to which even the most intelligent and highly functioning individuals are unwittingly addicted. We spend most of our on-line time consuming content that is accompanied by some sort of narrative.

Truth be told, most people don’t take time to read much any more. We either want to be spoon fed to keep from having to read, or we want to be fed enough information so that we can then decide whether a deeper dive (that would require some reading) is warranted.

This is not a phenomenon that is limited to the younger crowd. As the pace of modern life has increased, our attention span has declined. So the average real estate buyer probably lost their patience for the ‘silent movie virtual tour’ many years ago. And who could blame them when silent movie virtual tours require the viewer to stop to read about the property, before or after having taken the time to watch the virtual tour?

When a potential buyer can see an attractive narrated tour, it moves the decision-making process along more efficiently and can help facilitate a much faster sale.

3. Narrated Virtual Tours Sell Your Property for More.

A University of Iowa study of thousands of real estate transactions in southern California found that virtual home tours are a big factor in selling houses at prices 2-3% higher than similar homes without online tours. July 2020 article: “Trying to sell a house? UI study finds virtual tours will bring more $$$” (Radio Iowa, 2020).

Who knew?!

4. Attract High-End Sellers.

The same UI article also noted that virtual tours make realtors look more professional and therefore more attractive to high-end property owners. These sellers prefer to work with agents who use virtual tours because they showcase properties better and shield sellers from a parade of potential buyers trapsing through a property, which is something more affluent sellers feel is an invasion of their privacy and a compromise of security.

5. Create a Feeling of Possession and Ownership.

We know that people make decisions based primarily on how something made them feel. Narrated virtual tours target the buyer’s imagination, giving them a sense of how they can use a house and how they would feel. In other words, a narrated virtual tour helps potential buyers feel more connected to a property because without it. Buyers are left to figure out exactly how they could use the space on their own. When provided with practical ideas of how the space can be used, viewers can more readily see themselves using it.

Sellers are better equipped to make a decision to buy, long before they even set foot on the property for a physical tour. This is because the seller agent creates an expectation in the sellers’ mind through an imaginative and practical narrated virtual tour.

6. NVTs Make Agents Be Remembered.

People remember nearly 65% of the visual content three days later compared to written or spoken content (Jeff Bullas, 15 Visual Content Marketing Statistics That’ll Blow Your Mind, 2018).

Real estate professional are in a battle not only to capture the attention, but to retain it even after the content is seen. Like any well-read story, a compelling narration puts buyers inside the property being sold in a powerful way that isn’t easily forgotten in the flood of images and information viewers see every day. Again, the distinguishing edge is the voice that invites viewers to see themselves inside the story of a given property.

7. Narrated Virtual Tours Help You Save Time.

Narrated virtual tours are 24/7 open houses. It saves and multiplies realtors’ time because it frees them for other tasks because potential buyers are able to view and consider a property without having to physically visit it.

The great thing about narrated virtual tours is that it saves the viewer time because, as mentioned earlier, it can spare them additional reading by providing them with helpful information.

Buyers are willing to do their due diligence. But after a long day at work, many appreciate a virtual tour complete with a well-thought-out narrative to quickly educate them on the property. This gives them the gift of precious time.

8. Increase Traffic to your Website.

The ‘bounce rate’ represents the number of visitors who leave a website after seeing just one page. A website that only maintains visitors’ attention for a moment will have a high bounce rate. Who cares? A high bounce rate adversely affects search engine rankings and online exposure, which can’t be good. People watching narrated videos will stay longer on a given website than those clicking few a slide show or a silent virtual tour.

Not only will they stay longer, they will be more likely to share what they saw, which increases the website’s online authority through backlinks.

On Your Inferiority Complex & Fear

July 1, 2022 by PrincessSarah

Letters to my younger, academically-challenged, and chronically insecure self.

On Unfriending Inferiority and Fear

You will often find that your deepest hardship and pain will fuel your greatest gifting. At times, you will want to curl up in a ball and disappear. You may even wonder what life would be like if you were strong enough to believe that ‘what it takes’ lives inside of you. When you realize that you are strong and that you do have ‘it,’ things will get a little easier. This letter is to help you on your way to that place.

It has been said that “in every adversity there is the seed to an equivalent advantage” (quote) and this is definitely true. Your struggles to read and understand things others find “intuitive” will feel like an infirmity worsened only by the sense that there is no one in the universe struggling the way you are. As an antidote for this sense of inferiority, I offer five points of encouragement:

Never Compare Yourself

You must vehemently resist the urge to compare yourself to others. Absolutely everyone falls victim to this tendency sometimes, with the result of either feeling better about themselves or feeling worse.

At one extreme, comparing yourself to others in self-congratulation is a sinister trap. It will deceive you into thinking you’ve arrived at the summit when you’ve only made it to the rest-stop halfway up the mountain. People caught in this trap don’t push themselves to develop or improve, satisfied in thinking they’re doing better than most.

Comparisonitis Cuts Both Ways

At the other end of the Comparisonitis Spectrum is the trap that causes people to believe they are losers or failures. You are most vulnerable to this. This evil will cause you to compare your worst feeling or opinion of yourself, with others’ best performance. Remember that exactly the same war that’s going on inside your head is happening inside everyone else’s.

Left unchecked, a constant drip of self-criticism will poison your view of yourself and stunt your growth. Combat this by repeating the vision and promises that have been spoken over your life and that resonate with your purpose. This will build your faith and confidence and renew your mind. Failure to do this will cause you to see those around you as giants and yourself a grasshopper. You will find yourself looking around in dismay, forlorn and intimidated as the people around you seem to advance in life with ease. Those who do advance have only succeeded in shutting down the noise in their head. This isn’t easy. But you must make it your priority.

Know Your Worth

To escape the tendency to be intimidated by others’ “genius”, you must know and value your own. As Albert Einstein put it, “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Know that many well-respected CEOs, successful entrepreneurs, and effective community leaders have overcome challenges far greater than yours. They aren’t bothered by the fact that we can’t all be good at everything. Their success was borne of a blend of resilience and creativity that helped them work through great academic and professional failure. The pain of their childhood only fueled their success.

Hard as it may be to believe, there are things you do with ease that many others might find hard.

Yes, You are a Genius Too!

Are you the person who tends to pick up on things others tend not to see? Do you have an innate ability to assess a situation, diffusing tension and misunderstanding through your humor and emotional intelligence? Are you the one who goes the extra mile to ensure the people who are often overlooked and under-appreciated are seen and applauded? Are you a great listener? Do you understand people’s pain? Are you a great mentor and counselor?

These are valuable qualities. Never forget that, even if you find yourself surrounded by people who don’t appreciate them.

Understand that, while humility has great value, self-deprecation (putting yourself down) has absolutely no place in your thought-life or the words that come out of your mouth. It is possible to be humble and confident at the same time. You must work hard to be both.

Honor those around you and serve them fervently. But make a point to know your gifts and talents and always celebrate them without apology.

Fear is Not Your Friend

Fear will often masquerade as wisdom to hinder you. When you think you are choosing wisdom, it will often be fear that sits at the table to counsel. You must develop the ability to discern the difference. Wisdom is your friend. Fear is not.

To build strength and do hard things with ease, you are going to have to take calculated risk. You must respond to fear quickly. When you do that, you will starve it of its primary sources of nutrition: time and excuses, both of which fuel great unproductivity in most people’s lives. You must seize the opportunity of a lifetime within the lifetime of the opportunity. If you pause at all, do so only to contemplate how you would feel at the end of your life when thoughts about your failure to act flood your mind. Let the only fear to which you respond be the fear of that regret.

Of course, this absolutely does NOT apply to situations involving physical safety. In those circumstances, it’s usually best to run away from the (head)light at the end of the tunnel, instead of towards it.

Just remember that courage is not the absence of fear, it is the ability to continue a course of action in spite of it. Whatever you know to do, hurry up and do it, because the torment you experience will only increase with the time you waste agonizing over it. In short, although fear will be a familiar companion in your life (you are not alone in this) never let anxiety tell you what to do.

Fear opens doors to the negative

You will hear it said that “fear is faith for the things you don’t want,” because it opens doors to the negative, attracting it to you. As Job of the Old Testament once said, “The very thing I feared the most has come upon me.” This is definitely true.

When it comes to choices relating to your purpose and destiny, if anything, the thing you fear is to be food for you. Let it be your fuel and your guide. Think of it as a scarecrow that has been strategically placed in the middle of a field to scare away the birds. The only purpose of the scarecrow is to protect the harvest. In many circumstances, i there weren’t so much at stake, and the voice of fear wouldn’t be so loud. Always seek wise counsel regarding your purpose. But having done so, when you sense fear, run towards it with the expectation of a soon-to-be-harnessed promise.

You will be afraid that people will laugh at you. Let them laugh. They are quietly wondering what their lives might be like if they had your courage. It is a sad reality that most people never fulfill their destiny because fear is more real to them than reality.

Fear closes doors to opportunity

The ability to respond affirmatively to fear is like a muscle that develops when you force yourself outside of your comfort zone. Do this as often as possible.

You will hear it said that people often unwittingly reduce their lives based on the things they are afraid of. For example, someone with a fear of flying might go to great lengths to ensure they never have to board a plane to travel. As a consequence, they live their life never feeling fear. But that is simply because they have reduced their life to accommodate it. They may think they are living “free” from fear, but that’s only because their entire existence is based on the subconscious goal of leaning away from the things they fear instead of leaning in to engage them.

This is an easy trap that many respectable and even highly accomplished people fall into. The live safe lives completely void of courage because they couldn’t face themselves if they failed or found something hard. But now you know. Just as fear opens doors to the negative in your life, it also closes doors of opportunity that you would have wanted to stay open had you known what was on the other side.

8 Things To Know Before Launching into the VO Industry

June 2, 2022 by PrincessSarah

Basic Equipment in launching into VO industry — Basic equipment to help you start in your voice over business.

The pandemic lit a fire in many of us. It reminded us of our mortality, causing many of us to unearth dreams and talents we buried underneath a mound of adult duties and practicalities.

For the first time, we didn’t just see ourselves differently – for the first time, we saw ourselves and, also for the first time, we valued what we saw. Suddenly, our stressors and priorities had to make room for something that brought us hope, fulfillment, and maybe even a little joy. Now fueled by this new-born desire to live before we die, we started businesses, re-joined orchestras and choirs, and went back to school. We found ourselves no longer taking our tomorrows for granted. COVID started this….. and the world will never be the same.

This push caused many of us to think (once again) about launching into voice over work. Am I talking to you? Not sure? Do people always told you that you would be great as a voice over artist? Have you always been asked whether you have experience on the stage? Or have you ever been asked to record a quirky voice message for a friend?

Are you tired of wondering whether you could actually make it as a voice actor? Are you wondering what you need to know or what you need to have in place?

I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED!! Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things to do, know, or have in place to get you started…

1. COUNT THE COST….

One of the first things you need to know before jumping into the voiceover industry is how much money you absolutely have to spend. An award-winning voiceover artist explained some more affordable equipment that would get me started.

Here’s a short list of basics of the equipment he encouraged me to buy. It’s not the best of the best. But when you’re getting starting, it’s a good start:

Microphone: RODE NT1A is a large diaphragm condenser microphone. It sells on Amazon for about $220.

Headphones: Sony MDR 7506 sells on Amazon for about $87.

Interface: Presonus Audio box on Amazon for about $100.

Sound blanket: I know – you’re thinking, ‘I have blankets!!!’ But this is no ordinary blanket. This blanket will turn what Anthony Pica would call a “Hobo Fort” into an at-home studio. It sells for about $82 also on Amazon.

2. ….BUT WATCH YOUR WALLET

This is where things get interesting. Now that you know what you have to spend, your mission is to figure out how to hold onto as much of your money as you possibly can.

The sobering reality is that in every industry, there’s a hustle. Yes, even in the VO industry, there are businesses and people whose sole calling in your life will be to separate you from your money.

Do they set out to do that? Absolutely not! People who open gyms don’t (generally) open gyms so that they can rip people off. But they quickly realize that for every 50 people who join their gym and see results in reaching their fitness goals, there are 250 more people, right behind them who will pay for a gym membership and then never return for the first workout. These people quietly believe that because it’s January 1, or because they are paying for a membership, they are absolutely going to see the results they want.

The same thing happens in the voice over industry. We VO artists spend thousands on companies for a demo and some marketing strategies. It sounds like a wise expenditure of money. We might even call it an investment.

But the truth is that most of the time we end up being hustled because we don’t see the value coming out of the deal that we put into it. Don’t let it happen to you.

3. BE SELF-DISCIPLINED (& AUDITION YOUR SOCKS OFF)!

The next pointer is self-discipline.

The truth is that we get hustled because we allow ourselves to secretly believe that we can substitute money for work. That sounds harsh, doesn’t it? OK, maybe that’s not what we believe. Maybe we believe that by forking over large quantities of money, we will magically receive the discipline and work ethic necessary to execute on our goals. Or maybe we think that the money we are handing over is an offering to the god of Luck, who will send Opportunity to knock on our door with all our dreams wrapped up in a bow.

Let’s be frank. There can be no substitute for discipline and self-motivation. Discipline is the one good hustle that will actually make you money in any industry instead of costing you money. So if you happen to have $5,000 to give a demo-mill and you have the hustle to match it, go with God! (Because you will surely make the money back in no time.)

But if you lack discipline and self-motivation and if you tend to err on the side of quick fixes to accomplish your goals, you will be frustrated when things don’t work out.

The hard truth is there really is no such thing as an overnight success. Mr. or Ms. Overnight VO Success was actually up at night grinding and auditioning (sometimes 10-20 times a day) before our distraction-addicted culture stumbled upon their talent. It’s true – while we were sleeping, the “overnight success” was auditioning, having fully embraced the concept that the audition is The Job.

4. DISCONNECT YOURSELF FROM YOUR CRAFT

Next, you have to know how to disconnect your emotions from auditions and literally forget you even auditioned. I’m talking about your ability to move forward despite the fact that you think you crushed that last audition and should now stop and wait for the client to call you.

Your audition is like an offering. It should be your best work. But once you have offered it, no matter how good you think you were, you have got to let it go and keep auditioning. This is important because it protects you from the one thing that gnaws at our hope and confidence the most – that thing is called discouragement.

When you keep auditioning, forcing yourself to forget about your last magnificent audition, you will guard your heart from discouragement because it helps you forget what lies behind and press towards the next challenge.

5. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

Needless to say, it is always important to stay humble. No one likes to be around a self-absorbed performing artist. Nevertheless, in order to get into the voiceover industry, you MUST have confidence in yourself and your own talent and you MUST know how to encourage yourself. You don’t have time to call a friend every time you need support (and neither do they).

Learning how to encourage and affirm yourself will help you stay productive and keep you outperforming the artists who only perform when they’re inspired or in the right mood swing.

Positive self-talk also requires that you take an inventory on the almost silent yet lethal narrative that often plays in the back of our minds. This narrative challenges, and even bullies our new-found courage, causing us to wonder, “Who do you think you are??!” It’s important to realize this voice is there and to know how to silence it. You can affirm yourself until you’re blue in the face. But if your mind’s default setting has you programmed to believe a lie, there will be very little you can do to escape that limiting belief.

6. KNOW YOUR WHY

Before you get into voiceover, you have to know your goals and you must know why you are jumping in. If your only goal is to have fun, or to have an expensive and time-consuming hobby – great! When the discouragement comes, it should be easy to quit.

But if you have decided that you would like to be able to take your family out for a meal once in a while, that might be a nice motivator. Alternatively, if you love empowering people with your voice and would find yourself doing that whether or not you are paid, and you would love to be the voice of the overlooked and unseen underdog, there will be very little you can do to escape that as a calling and purpose for your voice over career. Things like these don’t push us from behind, they pull us forward like a magnet, and being able to remember them helps us navigate hardship and opposition much more easily.

7. DON’T COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS

This is actually a life skill. It is true of all of us in the arts, in entrepreneurship, and everywhere we go in life – we must learn how to shut down the noise and focus on developing ourselves. In this industry, it’s very easy to look around yourself in dismay. When we do that, as John Maxwell has said, we compare our worst to others’ best. We all need training. But there is a sound that is uniquely ours. Just as we should celebrate and honor other voice actors’ unique giftings, we should celebrate our own.

8. FIND YOUR VOICE AND CHERISH IT

Your voice print is unlike anyone else’s in the universe. There’s nobody else with a voice exactly like it. That, in and of itself, is such an awesome gift!! Along with certain unique gifts and talents, you are a one-of-a-kind package.

Does that mean that you should rely entirely on your talent, believing that someone will discover you without any effort on your part? Definitely not. But it does mean that what you have, what you carry, and what you offer have never been seen before and will never be seen again after you’re gone.

Does that scare you a little? It should. Because there is a mandate that came with the package called YOU, and it’s important that you find out what it is and live it out completely (or at least as much as possible) before you die. So if you have been putting yourself down or even just doubting yourself, be encouraged to lighten up on yourself. Do the work to find your voice and develop it. And when you have done that, be sure to guard it well. It is worth it. And so are you.