An Open Letter to Voices' New CEO: 7 Ways to Make Up with the VO Community

Welcome to November. And as we stare down the barrel of yet another holiday season, it's clear that 2023 has held more change and transition than any of us knew as the year started out. We've seen AI, ChatGPT, a writers and actors strike that hadn't happened concurrently in over 60 years, and a bit of sluggishness in the business that many haven't seen this century.

We've also seen some change and transition at the largest of the voice-over-specific platforms, Voices, as they replaced CEO and founder David Ciccarelli with interim CEO Jay O'Connor in October.

So today, as we start wrapping our heads around 2024, I think there's an opportunity here for Voices to start repairing the relationship, which has been pretty fraught, with the voice-over community.

And so, I thought I'd write an open letter to Voices and to interim CEO Jay O'Connor.

Dear Jay and Voices,

I'm reaching out because I think we are facing a unique and historic time in the voiceover industry. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and synthetic voices all pose an existential threat to our livelihoods as voice actors.

And while online platforms like Voices have no doubt opened up a world of opportunity to voice actors, their existence, your existence has also commoditized our services and applied downward pressure on rates for our business for the last 20 years.

And quite frankly, we've seen some pretty outrageous behavior from voices in the past. And that's on top of charging us not only 20% on every job, but also an additional annual fee.

For example, and you may not be aware of this, Jay, but for a long time projects that were posted on other sites that were also posted on Voices, the budgets on voices were significantly lower. Voices was double dipping.

Another example, Voices last year asked us to turn all of our voiceover contacts, our clients, over to Voices under the guise of an affiliate program and you would pay us the gracious sum of up to $100 for that. Now, it's clear that the former CEO thought that as individual businesspeople and voice actors as a group are stupid.

And under that CEO, I never understood voices approached. The fact is that Voices and platforms like it are built on the backs of the services that we as voice actors provide. And you, in the past and at least for now, need us.

And yet the contempt and the disrespect that's been shown to us has been mind-boggling.

Now, I understand that you and Morgan Stanley have to run a profitable business. Nobody challenges that. And we understand that we as voice actors are not at the top of the food chain and that you value, above all else shareholder value. And while that sucks for us, we get it.

Now, my guess is for the next few months, your job is going to be to get voices as profitable as possible on paper so that Morgan Stanley can unload it and at least stop the bleeding. Who knows?

But here's the thing: I believe that voices can run a profitable business and provide significant shareholder value while still having a friendly, cooperative, collaborative relationship with the voice actors, on the backs of which the business is built.

So here are a few ideas to begin to start repairing the relationship with the voice-acting community. And it look, I'm not the smartest guy in the room. Maybe some of these ideas suck. Maybe they all suck, but maybe they'll spark some ideas from people that are smarter than I am.

1. Re-sign the NAVA fAIr Voices Pledge

Now, while Voices did sign the pledge under David Ciccarelli, NAVA has since removed Voices from the fAIr Voices Pledge until such time that they can meet with you, Jay.

Meet with them. Re-sign the pledge. That's easy peasy.

2. Clearly mark all AI and synthetic voices jobs as such

It's often very difficult for especially newer talent to figure out from the sparse specs in a voice to job posting whether a job is intended for a guy or machine learning or for a synthetic voice clone.

You want to share some goodwill, Jay? Do some due diligence on these jobs on behalf of voice actors so that we can determine for ourselves whether the usage, the job itself, the rates, everything makes sense for us on a job-by-job basis as businesspeople.

3. Reinstate a respectable minimum rate

Now, for years, Voices had a minimum rate of $100, but they threw that out the window in 2022 under the guise of “build[ing] relationships and trust with clients through these smaller introductory projects.”

But what it really did, Jay, was it showed us as voice actors just how much Voices values our work.

And is there anyone who really believes that AI is not going to take all that low-end garbage work? Let Fiverr have that crap.

I personally feel that even $100 is too low and the minimum should be $200 or $250 U.S. But at least reinstating the old minimum of $100 is a step in the right direction.

4. Reinstate transparency in whom we're working for

There was a time when Voices was transparent for each and every job about who the end client was, who we're doing the work for. But that practice ended years ago.

Voice actors have the right to know who they're working for and who they're accepting money from in order to make valid business, moral, and ethical decisions based on that information.

They should know, at the bare minimum, the name and address of the company and the contact person, full name, of who they'll be working with at that company.

5. Be completely clear and transparent with clients and voice actors about just how the budgets are being disbursed

Both the client and the voice actor absolutely have the right to know how much of the budget is going to the voice actor and how much of the budget is going to the platform on every job. And clients should also know upfront what you're charging voice actors to be a part of the platform and what those fees are in addition to the per-job fee.

Conversely, voice actors should know if and when clients are being charged over and above that 20%. For example, we should absolutely be able to see how much of the budget is going for fees such as the “managed services” fees on those jobs.

In order for the platform to be healthy, we all - clients, voice actors, the platform - we all have to thrive. All I ask is that we all put all our cards on the table financially.

6. Take a position of leadership

If Voices is going to survive, Jay, then the voice-over industry has to survive. Rather than just squeezing every drop of juice out of the business, choose to be an industry leader.

Voices has a truly unique position in this industry because of its sheer size. Choose to be ethical. Choose to do what's truly right for everyone involved, including voice actors. Choose to build the industry rather than to abuse it for your own good and shareholder enrichment.

7. Participate and talk

Brené Brown says “It's hard to hate someone up close.” Be open with us. Talk to us. Open a dialog. Just be real with us.

Now, I admit it will be hard at first. There's a lot of resentment built up in the voice-acting community because the former CEO did a lot of damage to that relationship. And yes, it will take time to repair that damage.

But take the example of Rolf Veldman, your counterpart, the CEO at Voice123. In 2018, Voice123 redesigned their entire site and the algorithm that runs it. Spoiler alert, it didn't go well.

Many voice actors lost a lot of money overnight, and they were furious. But to Rolf’s credit, he came to VO Atlanta that year in person. And to be honest, he had his ass handed to him. It did not go well. But Rolf, again, to his credit, faced the fire, and he has had an open dialog with the voice over community ever since.

When asked, he answers truthfully and thoughtfully, and he listens to us. He may not always agree. And we, as individuals and and as a group, we don't always agree with Rolf.

But my point is, we are absolutely a forgiving group. And if you take consistent steps to repair that relationship, I have real faith that that can indeed be the case.

And finally, Jay, you probably - and I don't know you, this is an assumption - you probably see Voices as an asset in Morgan Stanley's investment portfolio. Perhaps you see it as a technology business or at best, a digital marketplace.

But I would encourage you to look at it as a relationship business that just so happens to traffic in voice over services. At its core, it's about bringing together creative professionals to collaborate and do really good work together and hopefully appropriate professional rates.

And to the extent that our industry and all the key players in your marketplace - the voice actors, the clients, the platform itself - can thrive is the extent to which Voices will be successful and can return significant shareholder value.

To get my Move Touch Inspire Newsletter that comes out every Thursday specifically for voice actors, click that link in the description below and to get information on the VO Freedom Master Plan and VO Pro community, you can click those links in the description below as well.

I'd love to hear your comments below. I'd love to hear them in the VO Pro community or even in the free Facebook community called VO Freedom.

The more we talk amongst ourselves, the more we exchange information, the more we talk through these issues, the better and stronger industry we will have.

Thanks so much for your support. We'll see you back here next week.