Strategy Rules releases today!
This was yet another fascinating audio book I had the pleasure of narrating. Strategy Rules is a series of business strategy lessons learned by the three giants of the computing industry: Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, and Andy Grove of Intel.
These guys were geniuses and visionaries, but they weren’t perfect. They didn’t come out of the gate running perfect businesses with flawless strategies. They had to learn as they go. Their biggest strength was learning how to compensate for their weaknesses by learning new skills and bringing in people to their company who can complement them.
TIP OF THE WEEK
I always learn something from the books I narrate that I can apply to my voiceover career. What did I learn from Strategy Rules…?
These are the names of the Strategy Rules chapters:
Look Forward, Reason Back
Make Big Bets, Without Betting the Company
Build Platforms and Ecosystems—Not Just Products
Exploit Leverage and Power—Play Judo and Sumo
Shape the Organization around Your Personal Anchor
I could pen a month’s worth of blog entries exploring each of these lessons, so let’s just focus on one.
Build Platforms and Ecosystems—Not Just Products
Apple has an “ecosystem”: iPhone, iWatch, iPad, etc. Your goal should be to create a platform, not just a one-product business.
For our purposes, let’s define a “product” as a genre or specific service you can provide to clients.
For example, If you got basic voiceover training, produced a commercial demo, and can record from home, you have two “products” to offer: commercial narration and home recording. If you can edit the audio files, that’s another product/service you can offer but be careful with that. If you tell a voice seeker you can edit files they may think you can add music, master the audio, etc.. If you can’t do those things at a pro level, I’d suggest you say “I can deliver clean, raw audio files” which most of the time is all you need to do anyway.
If you can become effective in another voiceover genre i.e. eLearning, audio books, etc. and offer additional services like proofreading or translation, you are well on your way to building a platform of products & services that can generate multiple revenue streams. Don’t jump the gun, though! Get really good at one thing before you try to develop another. Don’t be a watered-down business that offers mediocre products & services.
NEWS AND NOTES
Thursday, May 14th @8PM EST: My next Edge Studio Business and Money 201 webinar will be ‘Workflow’. In this one-hour webinar, we’ll talk about how to manage your office, inbox, and Systems of Thought. This webinar caps at 25 attendees and sells out fast. Click here to sign up.
Thursday, May 21st @8PM EST: My next Edge Studio Marketing 201 webinar will be ‘Keeping Clients Coming Back’. In this one-hour webinar, I’ll tell you the REAL secret to client retention. This webinar caps at 25 attendees and sells out fast. Click here to sign up!
Wednesday, May 27th @2:00 PM EST: even though the Audio Publishers Association Conference (APAC) is cancelled, my meeting table has gone from live to virtual! From 2:00-3:45, you are welcome to book a FREE 15-minute consult with me. We can talk about audiobook marketing, business, or just chat. This caps at 7 slots and will fill up fast so sign up ASAP. Click here to book your free 15-minute consult!
Thursday May 28th @2:30 PM EST: my “Learning to do eLearning” workshop has also gone from live to virtual! In this two-hour workshop you will learn what eLearning narration is, it’s sub-genres, narration tips, how much to charge, demo specs, and there will be live coaching! It’s $100 to attend, but due to the pandemic you can use the $25-off promo code EARLYBIRD528 anytime! This webinar caps at 50 attendees and is filling up fast so sign up ASAP. Click here to register!
HAPPY HAPPYS
Happy Star Wars Day and who cares about the other holidays. May the Fourth Be With You!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Tom Dheere is a voice actor who has narrated thousands of projects for hundreds of clients in over a dozen countries. He is also a voiceover business & marketing consultant known as the VOStrategist and produces the comic book “Agent 1.22”. You can subscribe to his weekly blog and the monthly VO Strategist Learnin’ Stuff Notice here.