September 11, 2024 • 21 mins
Discover how the right voice can transform your business's brand identity with insights from our latest guest, the accomplished voiceover artist Barby Molnar. With clients like Johnson & Johnson and CVS, Barby brings a wealth of experience and practical knowledge on how voiceovers go beyond animation and audiobooks to shape commercials, telephone systems, and explainer videos. Learn how a carefully selected voice can elevate brand recognition and seamlessly align with marketing strategies, making your business more relatable and memorable to customers. Through vivid examples, Barby demonstrates the undeniable power of a well-chosen voiceover in crafting a consistent and compelling brand persona.
Uncover the complexities behind voiceover pricing and the impact of emerging AI technologies on the industry. We break down the various factors that influence rates, from project type and usage duration to geographic reach, highlighting the significant effort involved in producing high-quality audiobooks. Additionally, Barby shares her perspective on the current limitations of AI voices compared to human talent and discusses legislative efforts by industry organizations to address these challenges. This episode is a must-listen for businesses eager to harness the full potential of voiceovers in their operations and stay ahead in a rapidly evolving market.
Website: https://www.barbyvo.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barby.voice/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbyvo/
Be sure to visit BizRadio.US to discover hundreds more engaging conversations, local events and more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hank (00:10):
This is the Zoomers to Boomers Business Show and you're
listening to bizradious allentrepreneurs all the time.
Welcome everyone.
I'm Hank Eder, also known asHank the PR Guy, host of the
Zoomers to Boomers Business Show, the show formerly known as the
(00:32):
Home Business Success Show.
You're listening to bizradiousall entrepreneurs all the time.
Our guest today, barbie Molnar,has been delivering
professional voiceover servicesto clients such as Fiserv,
johnson, johnson, cvs,mcgraw-hill, sap, bnp, paribus,
(00:54):
banking, GSK Pharmaceuticals andthe Missouri Lottery for the
last four years.
With a voice that's warm,natural, friendly and versatile,
barbie lends her voice tocommercial projects, medical
narrations, explainer videos anda variety of corporate work.
When not in her sound-treatedhome studio, barbie's probably
(01:18):
in the gym, reading, playingtennis, singing or dreaming of
faraway places to visit.
She and her husband, john, havethree grown kids and live in
Orlando with their rescued pup,burke, who spends her days
chasing lizards and squirrels.
That sounds like an idylliclife for a pup.
(01:38):
Welcome to the show, barbie.
Barby (01:41):
Thank you so much, Hank, for having me.
I really appreciate it.
I'm glad to be here.
Hank (01:44):
Oh, you're welcome.
It's my pleasure.
Well, if you would get usstarted by telling us what it is
that you do, what arevoiceovers, and can you give a
few examples of certain types ofvoiceovers?
Barby (01:56):
Sure, sure, you know, for some people who have heard of
voiceover, the first thing thattheir mind goes to is cartoons
or animation, and the otherthing would be audiobook
narration.
Oh, I've listened to audiobooks.
Is that what you do?
So that's one of the morewell-known types, but that's
(02:17):
almost an entirely differentfield of voiceover.
So, yes, voiceover is anytimeyou are watching something or
not watching something could bea commercial on the radio, but
you hear a voice and you don't,but you don't see the person
speaking.
So it could be a TV or radiocommercial.
(02:40):
It could be you're walkingaround Marshalls and you hear
this recorded voice.
At first you think, oh, Iwonder if that's the person at
the cash register, but then yourealize no, that sounds really
polished, that's a voiceover.
Or you call a business, like alarge legal firm, for example,
and you get that rotation ofpress one for this, press, two
(03:05):
for this and so we call that IVR.
That's a voiceover.
You go to a website, a companywebsite, and you see like an
animation explaining the productthat they sell, but there's a
voice explaining that and that'san explainer video, and that's
something that we do, I see whatis what is ivr?
(03:28):
ivr is um, uh, gosh, you'regonna, you're testing my, my
acronym, acronym, you know whatit's?
It's uh, I can't think of whatit is right now.
Hank (03:39):
It's virtual it's, it's basically telephony.
Barby (03:43):
Is what another?
Another name for it.
Hank (03:45):
But it's one of the responsive.
Barby (03:48):
It's a virtual responsive telephone, so when you say
something it responds to whatyou say.
Hank (03:54):
Oh, very cool.
So the VR part is probablyvirtual responsive it's just the
iPad?
Barby (04:00):
Yeah, exactly.
Hank (04:01):
Very, very cool.
Well, you've just told me alittle bit about how voiceovers
are used for businesses.
I mean, most of us are probablymost familiar with the
voiceover narration and whatcomes to my mind is that scene
in Mrs Doubtfire where RobinWilliams is putting in the voice
for that bird in the cage, andI don't know if you've seen, mrs
(04:25):
Doubtfire, absolutely.
Barby (04:26):
If you know that scene I'm talking about.
I've actually watched itrecently.
So yeah, I love that.
Of course you can't not loveRobin Williams and everything he
does and all the voices he'screated.
Hank (04:38):
Exactly, I think.
Barby (04:39):
if he did the voiceover for the movie Aladdin the
animated Aladdin.
Hank (04:44):
He did.
I loved Robin, yeah.
So how effective are voiceoversas a marketing tool for
businesses?
Barby (04:53):
Well, I mean very effective it's.
A voiceover is one of thosefields that is very.
It impacts so much and so, somuch about business, but you
don't see it, you don't know it,it's invisible.
Until you're aware of it, untilyou understand and you've heard
about it If it's a goodvoiceover, you don't even.
(05:16):
You don't even know voiceoverexists.
So the purpose of it in businessis one thing is brand
recognition.
You know you have a businesslike for what you do, hank,
you've got your hip hop, yourrhymes and that is so
recognizable and you continuethat.
You perpetuate that.
(05:37):
If you changed it from day today you wouldn't have.
You know people wouldn't haveanything to latch on to.
And it's kind of like that withvoiceover.
You in different ways.
So you have a brand and yourbrand is you know the colors you
use, it's the mood that you'retrying to set.
(05:57):
It's all of these things as amarketer that you you know as a
PR person, you know it's all ofthese elements that come
together and you have to have avoice that represents that.
And if you don't, if you're justyou know, if you don't have a
voice that represents all thethings you're doing, it might
not all come together and,especially, depending on what
(06:17):
you're doing, if you've, ifyou're marketing to a certain
generation and maybe you wantsomething that's really casual
and your brand is casual, youwant that voice.
You don't want somebodyanswering your phone and having
on your phone system that soundsextremely formal and corporate.
You want somebody that's justlike that person next door,
(06:41):
that's just like hey, what's up?
Kind of voice that people aregoing to be more relating to.
That are your business type andyour clientele type.
So it's really creating thatheart to heart connection for
your business and what.
Who you're seeking to serve,for them to feel welcome and
(07:02):
understand that this is a placefor them.
That's one aspect of it.
The other thing is you have amessage that you want to provide
right, and so that message,that voice, is to get your
message out and communicate itas well as it can be
communicated.
And that might not be theassistant to the marketing VP,
(07:27):
that might not be the businessowner or his wife that knows the
product, that knows what theywant, but they don't have the
training, they don't have theacting, they don't have the
coaching, the experience and theknowledge of how to represent
that information and communicateit effectively.
So that's what my role is is tofind out what the business
(07:51):
owner wants, what they're tryingto communicate, who it's being
communicated to, and how to setthat tone and how to communicate
that.
So, yeah, that's how it is forbusinesses, the purpose of it
for businesses, and you can runthat through your marketing
campaign, you can run it throughyour advertising.
It can be the voice on yourphone, it can be the same voice
(08:14):
on your website, it can be onyour training modules for new
employees, and so that gives yousuch a cohesive feeling to your
business and I think anybusiness would want that.
Hank (08:27):
I would think so.
That is very cohesive and talkabout, you know, branded content
.
That's really the heart of it.
You know, I could think of oneexample right now.
There used to be Canada Drycommercials where John Cleese
from Monty Python would be thevoice of that and he was talking
about maybe getting a canaryinto the commercial.
(08:49):
These were radio ads.
He was talking about getting acanary into the commercial and
the canary could say that CanadaDry ginger ale was not too
tweaked, you know.
Barby (08:58):
Yeah, yes.
Hank (08:59):
But you know, visually I can think of other kinds of
brand recognition, like Flo fromProgressive Insurance.
But that's video, notnecessarily audio.
I don't know if you ever hearFlo on the radio.
Barby (09:13):
I don't know.
There's always a voiceoverafter Flo gets done doing her
thing and that voiceover needsto keep that mood, keep that
tone and keep that branding andthat feeling and that mood from
what Flo is just doing.
Hank (09:30):
That's really cool because , I mean everybody.
There's certain things thateverybody knows.
Everybody knows Flo for a longtime, until you know the actor
got into trouble.
Everybody knew Jared fromSubway.
Yes, yes, yeah, exactly.
That being said, yeah, I wouldthink voiceovers are a great
benefit to business, especiallywhen they're used properly.
(09:56):
In voiceovers, pricing is notas straightforward as it is in
other areas.
Maybe you could shed a littlebit of light on that, because
just so people can wrap theirbrains around it, and maybe some
of our listeners might belooking for voiceover artists to
do certain things for them.
Barby (10:10):
Right, right, yeah, it is .
That's a good question, becauseit is a very different pricing
structure.
It's not flat rates for most ofthe work that we do, and the
reason for that is because ifI'm hired to do a TV commercial,
for example, my rate willdepend on a couple of different
(10:34):
things it will depend on is thisa local TV commercial that's
just going to be in Orlando?
Well, that would be one usage.
But what if they decide theywant to do a regional, or if
they want to do it nationwide?
Well, now they're paying for myvoice.
They're paying for the use ofmy voice.
They're not paying for aproduct that they went and buy
(10:58):
and now it's theirs.
It's still mine, okay.
So what they're paying for ishow many people is my voice
reaching?
And then the second level ofthat is for what duration of
time?
Because if you want to use myvoice in Orlando for three
months, then it's this price,okay.
But if you decide, then, well,we want to make this go
(11:19):
nationwide and we're going torun it for a year.
Now, that's a whole notherthing.
That is, you need to pay formore usage and for a longer
duration of time.
So you know, if I do that TVcommercial for nationwide for a
year and they decide they wantto come back and do that
commercial the following yearand do that commercial the
(11:40):
following year.
They even if I do nothing, I'vealready done the work, the
contractually that client willcome back to me and let me know
they're doing this.
They will pay me for anotheryear plus 10%.
So that's how that works forcommercial.
Now if I were to do a book, okay, that's, that's a whole nother
thing.
For the book you pay perfinished hour.
(12:04):
That means when I get donereading your book and it's four
hours long, for example, itmight take me eight or eight to
10 to 12 hours to produce onehour of that book.
So I'm going to charge you $400per finished hour or $ hundred
dollars for that book.
And you know somebody might bethinking four hours, sixteen
(12:25):
hundred dollars, but it's somany more hours when you know
all of the process that goesinto that, the training that
went into that, the preparation,the reading the book, the
finding out pronunciations, thenyou're recording, then you're,
and you've got to master theaudio, you've got to proof it,
go back and make sure there's noword error or anything.
(12:47):
So it is very time consuming todo audiobooks, that's long form
narration.
And then if you have something Idon't know if I'm going into
too much detail here, but likethere are some other areas of
voiceover where it's just youknow, you pay and it belongs to
the client now and those arethings that you do internally.
So if, if you wanted anexplainer video for your website
(13:11):
or you wanted the telephonerecordings, those are per prompt
.
The telephone recordings yougive me.
You know eight prompts, thenI'm charging you per prompt that
you give me and that belongs toyou now.
And each time you want tochange a prompt you send it back
to me and I do more prompts andthere's a per prompt price.
If you want the video on yourwebsite, it's a one-time fee and
(13:35):
it's based on how many minuteslong Usually those are like one
to three minutes long, but sofor corporate type work it is
per minute is the pricing andthat stuff that stays in-house
for your employees, for yourclients that come to your site,
so it's not being broadcast whenit's being broadcast, that's
where we go into the usage feesand the location fees.
Hank (13:59):
I see that's quite involved and no, I don't think
he went into too much detail,but I think that the nature of
it meant that it really neededthat kind of detail so that
people would understand arepaying so much more for the
audio books than they're payingfor the print books.
And in some cases it's becauselibraries these days are
(14:32):
becoming underfunded.
It's becoming a problem to thelibrary to have those kind of
contracts where they have torenew that contract for the
audio book, whatever it is,every two years or something
like that.
Barby (14:43):
Now that shouldn't be the case.
If I do an audio book and Ijust finished doing a children's
audio book recently, which wasa lot of fun because I got to do
some voices, you know somedifferent character voices but
if I do a book, it's it's.
It's your per finished hourcharge.
You own it.
I have done, my work is done.
It is now yours.
Hank (15:09):
Maybe that have done.
My work is done, it is nowyours and maybe that's the
publishing company that they'rehaving issues with.
Like, you know, if it's a big,if it's a large print, you know
publishing company that's alsodoing the audio books.
Maybe the deals they're cuttingwith the libraries is what was
at what was at issue there.
Yeah, you know, time is flying.
I'd like to ask you this youknow AI is creeping into
(15:30):
everywhere.
I mean, everywhere you look, aiis there and some people are
touting the so-called benefitsof AI narration and you know
there could be a person who justlooks like a real person.
Even for video, they have afake person and a fake voice,
but only trained professionalscan really tell the difference.
(15:51):
What are the implications of AIfor voiceover artists?
Barby (15:56):
Yeah.
Well, there are someimplications and that is one of
the biggest conversations rightnow that's flying around the
voiceover community.
As a matter of fact, we've gotpeople in voiceover.
An organization one of theorganizations NAVA the National
Association for Voice Actors isgoing to Congress and trying to
(16:19):
get some laws into place,because, first of all, these are
sort of two separate issues,but they're related,
(16:54):
no-transcript.
But we also have thecompetition of the AI voice, of
the AI voice.
What we found, as we're talkingabout it and listening to a lot
of the AI stuff, is that, yes,ai has gotten really good, but
it's not as good as a humanvoice.
(17:16):
And if you're listening to itfor a while, you know the first
couple of sentences might soundlike oh yeah, this is a person.
But at some point, if youlisten for a little while, at
some point getting distractedand thinking, is this a?
It's kind of like have you everhad one of those phone calls
where you start to answer themand you realize this isn't even
(17:39):
a person.
Hank (17:41):
They set it up to ask you a question and it pauses for a
moment for you to answer it, andthen, once I caught on to that,
it irritated me.
No, I mean, it was horrible.
I would just hang up right atthat point, didn't want to hear
what they had to say.
Barby (17:56):
Yeah, so yeah, AI, and AI is less expensive to use, of
course, and is quick, but as I'mtalking to people who use it,
like a lot of what we call thee-learning industry, which is
corporate training stuff, aregoing in that direction because
(18:17):
they have such a bulk of workand it's like a high quantity of
time, it's a lot less expensivefor them for somebody to do six
hours of, for an AI to do sixhours worth of voiceover, than
to pay someone to do six hours.
However, some of theconversations I've had with some
of these people who produce thematerial is the reality is, if
(18:40):
you have a group of people thatyou're trying to impart
information and they really needto learn this information and
retain this information, if theyare distracted by thinking,
starting to their mind iswandering.
Is this a human?
Is this an AI voice?
You know, are they retaining?
Because there are distractionswith that.
(19:02):
And also the other side of thatis, if you don't like something
about the read with a human, youcan just tell them, can you?
Can you make this a little bitsunnier, Can you?
And I'll know what you mean.
Does the AI voice understandsome of the terminology that we
use and the nuances of that.
So they're still working onthose things.
It's not always as good.
Hank (19:23):
Yeah, it's probably not nearly as good, not at this
point in time, but I think thetime will come that we probably
don't know the difference.
You know, time has really flownby.
We're almost out of time.
Flown by.
We're almost out of time.
If, very, very quickly, you cangive one piece of advice to
people who want to possiblypursue a career in voiceover,
what would that be?
Barby (19:42):
Well that would be don't quit your day job before you do
your research on this work.
There's so much involved.
A lot of people think that youcould just go get a microphone
and now you're ready to go.
The work's just going to comeat you.
The work does not come at you.
You have to have a lot oftraining, you have to have a lot
of education and you need toreally do a lot of homework
(20:08):
before you step in.
So that's, I mean, that's allI'd say.
I don't want to discourageanyone.
I think it's a great field, butdefinitely there's a lot to be
done before you're ready to go.
Hank (20:18):
Well, how can our listeners get in touch with you?
What's the best way?
Barby (20:22):
You can go to my website at Barbie Molnar, voiceover
actor, and that's Barbie with aY, not an IE like the doll.
So it's B-A-R-B-Y-M-O-L-N-A-R.
Voice actor, voiceover actor.
That's my website.
You can email me at Barbie atBarbie V-O, as in voice actor
(20:43):
voiceovercom.
I'm not saying this right, butor you can go to LinkedIn and
find me.
You can go to Instagram.
I'm on Facebook.
So, really, if you know how tospell my first name and my last
name, you can find me very, verygood.
Hank (20:58):
Well, thanks for being here with us today, barbie, and
to our listeners, join us nextWednesday on the Zoomers to
Boomers business show right hereon bizradious.
As you go about your day, Iwant to remind you to practice
kindness.
It's the greatest uniter thisworld has ever known.
See you again next week.
(21:19):
This is Hank Eder, wishing allof you a fabulous, productive
and successful day.
This is the Zoomers to Boomers Business Show and you're
listening to bizradious allentrepreneurs all the time.
Welcome everyone.
I'm Hank Eder, also known asHank the PR Guy, host of the
Zoomers to Boomers Business Show, the show formerly known as the
(00:32):
Home Business Success Show.
You're listening to bizradiousall entrepreneurs all the time.
Our guest today, barbie Molnar,has been delivering
professional voiceover servicesto clients such as Fiserv,
johnson, johnson, cvs,mcgraw-hill, sap, bnp, paribus,
(00:54):
banking, GSK Pharmaceuticals andthe Missouri Lottery for the
last four years.
With a voice that's warm,natural, friendly and versatile,
barbie lends her voice tocommercial projects, medical
narrations, explainer videos anda variety of corporate work.
When not in her sound-treatedhome studio, barbie's probably
(01:18):
in the gym, reading, playingtennis, singing or dreaming of
faraway places to visit.
She and her husband, john, havethree grown kids and live in
Orlando with their rescued pup,burke, who spends her days
chasing lizards and squirrels.
That sounds like an idylliclife for a pup.
(01:38):
Welcome to the show, barbie.
Barby (01:41):
Thank you so much, Hank, for having me.
I really appreciate it.
I'm glad to be here.
Hank (01:44):
Oh, you're welcome.
It's my pleasure.
Well, if you would get usstarted by telling us what it is
that you do, what arevoiceovers, and can you give a
few examples of certain types ofvoiceovers?
Barby (01:56):
Sure, sure, you know, for some people who have heard of
voiceover, the first thing thattheir mind goes to is cartoons
or animation, and the otherthing would be audiobook
narration.
Oh, I've listened to audiobooks.
Is that what you do?
So that's one of the morewell-known types, but that's
(02:17):
almost an entirely differentfield of voiceover.
So, yes, voiceover is anytimeyou are watching something or
not watching something could bea commercial on the radio, but
you hear a voice and you don't,but you don't see the person
speaking.
So it could be a TV or radiocommercial.
(02:40):
It could be you're walkingaround Marshalls and you hear
this recorded voice.
At first you think, oh, Iwonder if that's the person at
the cash register, but then yourealize no, that sounds really
polished, that's a voiceover.
Or you call a business, like alarge legal firm, for example,
and you get that rotation ofpress one for this, press, two
(03:05):
for this and so we call that IVR.
That's a voiceover.
You go to a website, a companywebsite, and you see like an
animation explaining the productthat they sell, but there's a
voice explaining that and that'san explainer video, and that's
something that we do, I see whatis what is ivr?
(03:28):
ivr is um, uh, gosh, you'regonna, you're testing my, my
acronym, acronym, you know whatit's?
It's uh, I can't think of whatit is right now.
Hank (03:39):
It's virtual it's, it's basically telephony.
Barby (03:43):
Is what another?
Another name for it.
Hank (03:45):
But it's one of the responsive.
Barby (03:48):
It's a virtual responsive telephone, so when you say
something it responds to whatyou say.
Hank (03:54):
Oh, very cool.
So the VR part is probablyvirtual responsive it's just the
iPad?
Barby (04:00):
Yeah, exactly.
Hank (04:01):
Very, very cool.
Well, you've just told me alittle bit about how voiceovers
are used for businesses.
I mean, most of us are probablymost familiar with the
voiceover narration and whatcomes to my mind is that scene
in Mrs Doubtfire where RobinWilliams is putting in the voice
for that bird in the cage, andI don't know if you've seen, mrs
(04:25):
Doubtfire, absolutely.
Barby (04:26):
If you know that scene I'm talking about.
I've actually watched itrecently.
So yeah, I love that.
Of course you can't not loveRobin Williams and everything he
does and all the voices he'screated.
Hank (04:38):
Exactly, I think.
Barby (04:39):
if he did the voiceover for the movie Aladdin the
animated Aladdin.
Hank (04:44):
He did.
I loved Robin, yeah.
So how effective are voiceoversas a marketing tool for
businesses?
Barby (04:53):
Well, I mean very effective it's.
A voiceover is one of thosefields that is very.
It impacts so much and so, somuch about business, but you
don't see it, you don't know it,it's invisible.
Until you're aware of it, untilyou understand and you've heard
about it If it's a goodvoiceover, you don't even.
(05:16):
You don't even know voiceoverexists.
So the purpose of it in businessis one thing is brand
recognition.
You know you have a businesslike for what you do, hank,
you've got your hip hop, yourrhymes and that is so
recognizable and you continuethat.
You perpetuate that.
(05:37):
If you changed it from day today you wouldn't have.
You know people wouldn't haveanything to latch on to.
And it's kind of like that withvoiceover.
You in different ways.
So you have a brand and yourbrand is you know the colors you
use, it's the mood that you'retrying to set.
(05:57):
It's all of these things as amarketer that you you know as a
PR person, you know it's all ofthese elements that come
together and you have to have avoice that represents that.
And if you don't, if you're justyou know, if you don't have a
voice that represents all thethings you're doing, it might
not all come together and,especially, depending on what
(06:17):
you're doing, if you've, ifyou're marketing to a certain
generation and maybe you wantsomething that's really casual
and your brand is casual, youwant that voice.
You don't want somebodyanswering your phone and having
on your phone system that soundsextremely formal and corporate.
You want somebody that's justlike that person next door,
(06:41):
that's just like hey, what's up?
Kind of voice that people aregoing to be more relating to.
That are your business type andyour clientele type.
So it's really creating thatheart to heart connection for
your business and what.
Who you're seeking to serve,for them to feel welcome and
(07:02):
understand that this is a placefor them.
That's one aspect of it.
The other thing is you have amessage that you want to provide
right, and so that message,that voice, is to get your
message out and communicate itas well as it can be
communicated.
And that might not be theassistant to the marketing VP,
(07:27):
that might not be the businessowner or his wife that knows the
product, that knows what theywant, but they don't have the
training, they don't have theacting, they don't have the
coaching, the experience and theknowledge of how to represent
that information and communicateit effectively.
So that's what my role is is tofind out what the business
(07:51):
owner wants, what they're tryingto communicate, who it's being
communicated to, and how to setthat tone and how to communicate
that.
So, yeah, that's how it is forbusinesses, the purpose of it
for businesses, and you can runthat through your marketing
campaign, you can run it throughyour advertising.
It can be the voice on yourphone, it can be the same voice
(08:14):
on your website, it can be onyour training modules for new
employees, and so that gives yousuch a cohesive feeling to your
business and I think anybusiness would want that.
Hank (08:27):
I would think so.
That is very cohesive and talkabout, you know, branded content
.
That's really the heart of it.
You know, I could think of oneexample right now.
There used to be Canada Drycommercials where John Cleese
from Monty Python would be thevoice of that and he was talking
about maybe getting a canaryinto the commercial.
(08:49):
These were radio ads.
He was talking about getting acanary into the commercial and
the canary could say that CanadaDry ginger ale was not too
tweaked, you know.
Barby (08:58):
Yeah, yes.
Hank (08:59):
But you know, visually I can think of other kinds of
brand recognition, like Flo fromProgressive Insurance.
But that's video, notnecessarily audio.
I don't know if you ever hearFlo on the radio.
Barby (09:13):
I don't know.
There's always a voiceoverafter Flo gets done doing her
thing and that voiceover needsto keep that mood, keep that
tone and keep that branding andthat feeling and that mood from
what Flo is just doing.
Hank (09:30):
That's really cool because , I mean everybody.
There's certain things thateverybody knows.
Everybody knows Flo for a longtime, until you know the actor
got into trouble.
Everybody knew Jared fromSubway.
Yes, yes, yeah, exactly.
That being said, yeah, I wouldthink voiceovers are a great
benefit to business, especiallywhen they're used properly.
(09:56):
In voiceovers, pricing is notas straightforward as it is in
other areas.
Maybe you could shed a littlebit of light on that, because
just so people can wrap theirbrains around it, and maybe some
of our listeners might belooking for voiceover artists to
do certain things for them.
Barby (10:10):
Right, right, yeah, it is .
That's a good question, becauseit is a very different pricing
structure.
It's not flat rates for most ofthe work that we do, and the
reason for that is because ifI'm hired to do a TV commercial,
for example, my rate willdepend on a couple of different
(10:34):
things it will depend on is thisa local TV commercial that's
just going to be in Orlando?
Well, that would be one usage.
But what if they decide theywant to do a regional, or if
they want to do it nationwide?
Well, now they're paying for myvoice.
They're paying for the use ofmy voice.
They're not paying for aproduct that they went and buy
(10:58):
and now it's theirs.
It's still mine, okay.
So what they're paying for ishow many people is my voice
reaching?
And then the second level ofthat is for what duration of
time?
Because if you want to use myvoice in Orlando for three
months, then it's this price,okay.
But if you decide, then, well,we want to make this go
(11:19):
nationwide and we're going torun it for a year.
Now, that's a whole notherthing.
That is, you need to pay formore usage and for a longer
duration of time.
So you know, if I do that TVcommercial for nationwide for a
year and they decide they wantto come back and do that
commercial the following yearand do that commercial the
(11:40):
following year.
They even if I do nothing, I'vealready done the work, the
contractually that client willcome back to me and let me know
they're doing this.
They will pay me for anotheryear plus 10%.
So that's how that works forcommercial.
Now if I were to do a book, okay, that's, that's a whole nother
thing.
For the book you pay perfinished hour.
(12:04):
That means when I get donereading your book and it's four
hours long, for example, itmight take me eight or eight to
10 to 12 hours to produce onehour of that book.
So I'm going to charge you $400per finished hour or $ hundred
dollars for that book.
And you know somebody might bethinking four hours, sixteen
(12:25):
hundred dollars, but it's somany more hours when you know
all of the process that goesinto that, the training that
went into that, the preparation,the reading the book, the
finding out pronunciations, thenyou're recording, then you're,
and you've got to master theaudio, you've got to proof it,
go back and make sure there's noword error or anything.
(12:47):
So it is very time consuming todo audiobooks, that's long form
narration.
And then if you have something Idon't know if I'm going into
too much detail here, but likethere are some other areas of
voiceover where it's just youknow, you pay and it belongs to
the client now and those arethings that you do internally.
So if, if you wanted anexplainer video for your website
(13:11):
or you wanted the telephonerecordings, those are per prompt
.
The telephone recordings yougive me.
You know eight prompts, thenI'm charging you per prompt that
you give me and that belongs toyou now.
And each time you want tochange a prompt you send it back
to me and I do more prompts andthere's a per prompt price.
If you want the video on yourwebsite, it's a one-time fee and
(13:35):
it's based on how many minuteslong Usually those are like one
to three minutes long, but sofor corporate type work it is
per minute is the pricing andthat stuff that stays in-house
for your employees, for yourclients that come to your site,
so it's not being broadcast whenit's being broadcast, that's
where we go into the usage feesand the location fees.
Hank (13:59):
I see that's quite involved and no, I don't think
he went into too much detail,but I think that the nature of
it meant that it really neededthat kind of detail so that
people would understand arepaying so much more for the
audio books than they're payingfor the print books.
And in some cases it's becauselibraries these days are
(14:32):
becoming underfunded.
It's becoming a problem to thelibrary to have those kind of
contracts where they have torenew that contract for the
audio book, whatever it is,every two years or something
like that.
Barby (14:43):
Now that shouldn't be the case.
If I do an audio book and Ijust finished doing a children's
audio book recently, which wasa lot of fun because I got to do
some voices, you know somedifferent character voices but
if I do a book, it's it's.
It's your per finished hourcharge.
You own it.
I have done, my work is done.
It is now yours.
Hank (15:09):
Maybe that have done.
My work is done, it is nowyours and maybe that's the
publishing company that they'rehaving issues with.
Like, you know, if it's a big,if it's a large print, you know
publishing company that's alsodoing the audio books.
Maybe the deals they're cuttingwith the libraries is what was
at what was at issue there.
Yeah, you know, time is flying.
I'd like to ask you this youknow AI is creeping into
(15:30):
everywhere.
I mean, everywhere you look, aiis there and some people are
touting the so-called benefitsof AI narration and you know
there could be a person who justlooks like a real person.
Even for video, they have afake person and a fake voice,
but only trained professionalscan really tell the difference.
(15:51):
What are the implications of AIfor voiceover artists?
Barby (15:56):
Yeah.
Well, there are someimplications and that is one of
the biggest conversations rightnow that's flying around the
voiceover community.
As a matter of fact, we've gotpeople in voiceover.
An organization one of theorganizations NAVA the National
Association for Voice Actors isgoing to Congress and trying to
(16:19):
get some laws into place,because, first of all, these are
sort of two separate issues,but they're related,
(16:54):
no-transcript.
But we also have thecompetition of the AI voice, of
the AI voice.
What we found, as we're talkingabout it and listening to a lot
of the AI stuff, is that, yes,ai has gotten really good, but
it's not as good as a humanvoice.
(17:16):
And if you're listening to itfor a while, you know the first
couple of sentences might soundlike oh yeah, this is a person.
But at some point, if youlisten for a little while, at
some point getting distractedand thinking, is this a?
It's kind of like have you everhad one of those phone calls
where you start to answer themand you realize this isn't even
(17:39):
a person.
Hank (17:41):
They set it up to ask you a question and it pauses for a
moment for you to answer it, andthen, once I caught on to that,
it irritated me.
No, I mean, it was horrible.
I would just hang up right atthat point, didn't want to hear
what they had to say.
Barby (17:56):
Yeah, so yeah, AI, and AI is less expensive to use, of
course, and is quick, but as I'mtalking to people who use it,
like a lot of what we call thee-learning industry, which is
corporate training stuff, aregoing in that direction because
(18:17):
they have such a bulk of workand it's like a high quantity of
time, it's a lot less expensivefor them for somebody to do six
hours of, for an AI to do sixhours worth of voiceover, than
to pay someone to do six hours.
However, some of theconversations I've had with some
of these people who produce thematerial is the reality is, if
(18:40):
you have a group of people thatyou're trying to impart
information and they really needto learn this information and
retain this information, if theyare distracted by thinking,
starting to their mind iswandering.
Is this a human?
Is this an AI voice?
You know, are they retaining?
Because there are distractionswith that.
(19:02):
And also the other side of thatis, if you don't like something
about the read with a human, youcan just tell them, can you?
Can you make this a little bitsunnier, Can you?
And I'll know what you mean.
Does the AI voice understandsome of the terminology that we
use and the nuances of that.
So they're still working onthose things.
It's not always as good.
Hank (19:23):
Yeah, it's probably not nearly as good, not at this
point in time, but I think thetime will come that we probably
don't know the difference.
You know, time has really flownby.
We're almost out of time.
Flown by.
We're almost out of time.
If, very, very quickly, you cangive one piece of advice to
people who want to possiblypursue a career in voiceover,
what would that be?
Barby (19:42):
Well that would be don't quit your day job before you do
your research on this work.
There's so much involved.
A lot of people think that youcould just go get a microphone
and now you're ready to go.
The work's just going to comeat you.
The work does not come at you.
You have to have a lot oftraining, you have to have a lot
of education and you need toreally do a lot of homework
(20:08):
before you step in.
So that's, I mean, that's allI'd say.
I don't want to discourageanyone.
I think it's a great field, butdefinitely there's a lot to be
done before you're ready to go.
Hank (20:18):
Well, how can our listeners get in touch with you?
What's the best way?
Barby (20:22):
You can go to my website at Barbie Molnar, voiceover
actor, and that's Barbie with aY, not an IE like the doll.
So it's B-A-R-B-Y-M-O-L-N-A-R.
Voice actor, voiceover actor.
That's my website.
You can email me at Barbie atBarbie V-O, as in voice actor
(20:43):
voiceovercom.
I'm not saying this right, butor you can go to LinkedIn and
find me.
You can go to Instagram.
I'm on Facebook.
So, really, if you know how tospell my first name and my last
name, you can find me very, verygood.
Hank (20:58):
Well, thanks for being here with us today, barbie, and
to our listeners, join us nextWednesday on the Zoomers to
Boomers business show right hereon bizradious.
As you go about your day, Iwant to remind you to practice
kindness.
It's the greatest uniter thisworld has ever known.
See you again next week.
(21:19):
This is Hank Eder, wishing allof you a fabulous, productive
and successful day.
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