BizGrowMojo Episode 1 – Karl Sjoberg

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Welcome to the Bisgrow Mojo podcast. The podcast where we get into real talk

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about business ownership, growth, marketing, learning lessons, and advice with real business owners. Here’s your

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host, Ryan Amen. Now, let’s get down to business.

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I’m pumped to get this rolling. Let’s go.

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In today’s episode, we talked to Karl Shoberg, who does voiceover work for various companies, many of which are

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very wellknown. Karl’s success in this industry is nothing short of impressive. His success story made me rethink my

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professional choices after talking with him. Very cool, impressive, and fun work he’s doing. You’re going to want to hear

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his story. Let’s jump into it. All right. Well, let’s go ahead and get started. Hey, it’s good to have you uh

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come on the podcast, Karl. I appreciate it. and uh looking forward to getting into the weeds a little bit about your

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business and you know what you have to offer other business owners. Um maybe we can get started by just you know telling

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the audience a little bit about you know what you’re doing and and how you started doing that.

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Well, it’s it’s not a real long story. When I was uh out of high school, I went straight into radio and worked a couple

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small markets and ended up with a morning show on 100,000 watt FM for a couple years and uh just I basically

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played in radio for about 5 years, you know. Then I moved on. Small market radio was tough to make a living,

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especially if you were going to get married and have kids, etc. So, uh yeah. So, I did that and um you know, left it

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alone. That was back in the 80s uh in early 90s. Then then about 5 years ago,

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I was learning about these online platforms, the freelance platforms like Fiverr and Voice Jungle, Voice Realm,

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Voices.com, all these things. Yeah. So, I had a boat anchor for a laptop. I bought a microphone. I built a little

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box in a spare bedroom. And I made my own demo, which technically is against, you know, as a voiceover guy, you’re

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never supposed to make your own demo, but I did because I didn’t want to. I was cheap. Why is that?

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And I started I started getting work. I started getting work. And uh and then I had a professional demo made and uh in a

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year and a half I was a top rated and pro-rated seller on Fiverr and uh I had

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a website and a YouTube channel and uh had to quit my full-time job. Um wow.

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And uh yeah, just blossomed from there and now I’m in 80 countries uh audiobooks, social media, um commercials

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from McDonald’s all the way down to the local chiropractor. So yeah. Yeah. I was looking at your site. I noticed that you had an impressive

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lineup of um you know companies that you’ve worked with. How did you uh land some of those? How did you get into that

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to where you’re you were able to work with such big companies? They have they usually have agencies or

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what they call creative services directors like like TV and radio stations and things like that and uh

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they go to these platforms and uh because they now they have all these demos at their disposal. they can kind

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of put in a search, hey, I want a deep, warm, confident, authoritative voice, blah blah blah, and then they probably

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have a handful of people to look at and then they just choose you. Um, I really don’t do any marketing in that way. Um,

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all the platforms uh really keep me very very busy. Um, I do I do do direct work

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where people find me on YouTube and and on my website and uh that’s more economical. It’s cheaper for them and

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it’s it’s more lucrative for me because there’s nobody’s taking 20%. No platform fees and all that.

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Yeah. But yeah, they that’s how it that’s how it works. And then you build a reputation or people hear you, you

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know, hey, I heard you on this commercial here. I want you to do this for us. And yeah, that’s that’s kind of

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how it works. Awesome. So, uh, you know, what kind of inspired you to do this other than, you know, the fact that

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you’re working in radio in the past? Just is that mainly it or is there was there something else kind of behind?

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It sounds weird, but I loved commercials ever since I was a little boy. If there was things that always caught my

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attention was like, you know, way back in even in, you know, the late 60s and early 70s was um, you know, come on

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down, you know, uh, Johnny Olsen and and at the end of TV shows, you know, besides commercials, at the end of t TV

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shows, you know, Screen Gems, Metro Media, and uh, I would always I just

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loved hearing and then commercials just always fascinated me. I just loved creative commercials. Then when I was in

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radio, being on air was fun, but I loved more making commercials for like the

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local local retailers. And uh so that’s when I heard of Fiverr and all these

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things. It’s like, well, hell, I can do commercials, you know, and I I made my own and and put together

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a demo and and yeah, now no, this is um I’ve never made more money in my life. I

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work about an hour, hour and a half a day. That’s amazing. And uh yeah, and and you know, I just I love it. It’s uh

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it’s it’s a good way to do things. Uh but I have to mention people approach me

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and they want to get into voice over, which is great, you know, because it’s not about your voice. It’s about how you

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use your voice. It’s not about deep or high because if you really listen to commercials, there’s voices, you know,

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all over the map. you know, the big rancher voices and but then they’ll do a truck commercial and a guy’s just

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talking like this. He’s talking about a Chevy Trail boss. Um, it’s about what the customer want. But

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the hardest thing about voiceover, it’s not about it’s not just about talking. The only word I can come up with is a

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sensibility. You have to have a sensibility of what commercials or what this script demands, what it should

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sound like. Director’s notes, you have to know what they mean. It’s it’s a

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creative side that that’s hard to learn. Um, okay. I’ I’ve tried to train many many people

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and they stopped because they they just didn’t have that feel for it. Even though they had a great voice, they just

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it’s a it’s tougher business that way if you don’t have that sensibility and that creativity.

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Yeah. Can you kind of elaborate on that a little bit more? Like, you know, what is it that um is hard for people to to

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understand or or be able to wrap their head around as far as that goes?

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um things like okay let’s say you get director’s notes or you do what they call a live directed session uh you’re

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doing a commercial um let’s say for a local I do men’s cologne a lot I do a

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lot for Subaru and uh you’ll be saying something like um you know so you can come in to do this or that and the

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director will say ho ho ho um you got to swallow that K a little bit when you say come in today that the K is a little

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strong swallow that that means tone it down and you can’t You can’t pop your

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P’s like that. That’s called and then siblance. Um, you have to know what siblance and and uh proximity to the

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microphone when to get really close up on it and when to back off. Um, and then

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just it’s with the script, you know, I’d be looking at a script and and then you’ll

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get customers, they say what they want, but the script is actually very very very different. So, I’ll do a few cuts

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the way they want it. Then I’ll do a cut the way I think it should be just from experience.

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Most of the time they’ll pick that because they don’t know. When you study commercials or you’ve been around commercials, you’re like,

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man, this this needs more of that rough and rowdy voice. You know, we can’t have this um we just can’t have a guy talking

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like this, you know, about uh trucks and ranching and cattle, you know, that doesn’t work. Um, so

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so it’s more than reading and that’s why they call it a voice artist or a voice actor. Yeah. And then uh and then you get into I’ve

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done plenty of video games characters on video games. They want that rough and tumble, you know, they want that

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military guy that’s always all business, you know, they want them. And you have to get in that headsp space and the only

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way you’re going to get there is by being exposed to all these different characters growing up or, you know, or

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your own imagination, basically. Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s interesting. Crazy. Something that, yeah, people don’t think

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about, I would I would assume. Uh, so what were you doing before you started this and and kind of got this off the

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ground? We don’t have time for all that.

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My kids my kids made me make a list one time. Um

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I’ve done I’ve had 68 different jobs. Wow. That’s a lot. Well, this is probably number 60. This

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is probably 69 or 70 somewhere in there. But um I was always in you. I was in

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radio obviously. But you know, I was in logistics. I sold solar systems in California. Um I owned a big vending

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company. I owned a fabrication shop. Um um I used to design mechanical skill games for some of the top companies in

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the country that had like uh Chuck-E-Cheese or those redemption games with tickets and Chuck-E-Cheese and all

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that. Um I’ve designed a lot of those games and interesting and I would do I would do the voiceover

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stuff inside those games. Oh, that’s cool. Which was just fun for me. I never thought it would lead anywhere. But um

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I’ve done everything but sell cars. It’s um I’ve driven beer trucks. I have uh

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it’s just it’s I can’t it’s crazy everything I’ve lived on everywhere from the Navajo reservation to California,

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New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Washington State, California, Minnesota, Texas. Um

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yeah, it’s crazy. I’ve lived with every Go ahead. Oh, yeah. That that’s interesting. I was

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just going to ask, you know, what was kind of the the aha moment that made you realize you should get into doing this,

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you know, on all these platforms and and all that. I don’t

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A buddy of mine told me about Fiverr and I go, “What’s that?” It’s like, “Oh, it’s a place where you can do this.” Cuz I was developing this concept for sounds

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weird for making pancakes. It was really cool. And he goes, “You should go on Fiverr, you know, to help with the

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design or the graphics.” And I said, “What’s Fiverr?” and he told me about it and I learned it’s just like hold that

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you can do voice over on Fiverr and then there was a guy named Bill Diz he’s very

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popular in the industry um he’s a mentor for so many people and he was putting

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his stuff on Facebook his his blueprint for success in the voiceover business

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and it’s like hold that there’s people that actually you know I was told from early on you can’t get into voiceover

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it’s too many people it’s flooded and well I saw him doing that. And of course, I was not going to pay five

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grand. And at this point, I was working at a billion-dollar logistics company. And um

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so I I I researched him a little bit and then I learned about Fiverr. And it’s like, okay, so voice over, Fiverr, and

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my goal was, you know, I bought a $100 microphone and uh I my goal was to make 50 bucks a

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month. I thought that would just be fun. It was more of a lark that, you know, and uh it just

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at the risk of sounding self- serving, I knew I could do it. Um that that’s just it. That’s what Okay, I can do this. I

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don’t know if how many people are going to respond to it, but I know I’m good enough at it. Well, it just just built

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up really fast. That’s awesome. How fast feel like it it built to a point where you were like,

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“Hey, this is this is it. This is working.” Oh, yeah. Yeah. One day I was actually sitting at work and uh and a buddy of

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mine was saying it’s like, “Do you make any money at that?” And it’s just like, “Well, this is the 12th of December and I’m already I’ve already made double

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what I make here at work.” And I said, I looked at him and I said, “What am I still doing here? I I don’t know what I’m doing here.” And

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then I got to the point where I was doing voiceovers in the morning. I would race home at lunch and do a couple voiceovers. Then I would race home after

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work and do voiceovers. That’s amazing. Which Yeah. Yeah. So now if I could do it full-time, I could I could have a

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faster turnaround, more relationship with my customers, you know, immediate responses, which again just builds more

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business. So yeah, that’s awesome. That’s an amazing success story. That’s I I love hearing when people can

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do that, you know, in their spare time and just be like, “Hey, like why am I still working? Because this is way

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better. I’m making way more money.” You know, it’s it’s great. Oh, yeah. No. And and I encourage people, especially if you can and uh

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when people want to get into voiceover, I’ve had a lot of people, you know, I invite them to the studio and it’s like, look, there’s no you’re not going to pay

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me anything. We’re just going to see if you like it, if you can do it. You have to be somewhat techsavvy because there’s

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things called a digital audio workstation. It’s the software you use. You need an audio interface. You need a

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quiet place to you all you you do need a good microphone, but even more important is that you need a very quiet place to

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record. Yeah. And you have to learn some editing techniques. And it’s that all sounds

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complicated. It’s really not. Once you set up your software, which takes about an hour, that’s it for good. You’re set

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up. And the rest is just learning little tidbits. And then I hired an engineer to

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set up my equalization with my mic. You know, these things cost money, but it just it always gets you to that next

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level of professionalism. What would you say it would cost somebody getting into it now to to get a

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basic setup versus maybe somebody that’s like, I can really do this. I’m going to get a little bit higherend setup. What do you think that range is?

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It’s you’re going to spend if you I’m going to say granted if you already have a computer. Um, Reaper is

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the software I use that’s actually free for 60 days. So, that’s nice. And this when you do pay for it, it’s like 60

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bucks. Yeah. Um a a focus right audio interface,

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something like that is about 200 bucks. You know, you could spend a,000 bucks pretty fast.

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You don’t need a $1,000 microphone. My first microphone was like uh I think it was $280.

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This one here is about 700 and my shotgun mic is a few hundred. Um, you

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know, you add equipment slowly. But, uh, but before you get into all that, you

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should go to, if you can find a voice-over guy near you, um,

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let them, like someone like me, I say I introduce them to it and I let them watch me. Is this something you can

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handle or do? It’s not complicated, but if you’re if you don’t like computers or

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you’re not a little bit techsavvy and if you aren’t super if you’re not creative,

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it’s going to be a tougher hall. But, uh, yeah, I got in I got into it for less

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than 600 700 bucks. Um, but then after 6 months, I spent $3,000 on a professional

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demo. And then then I said, “Okay, I’m going to spend a,000 on this.” And then I got two 32-inch monitors. And you

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know, I built this studio in a professional studio and uh but it got me

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the return on investment was crazy because the better I sound and the faster I can turn around and all these great things, it gets you

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more business. So, what does a professional demo consist of? What happens in that process?

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What they do is is they give you uh J. Michael Collins was one of the first guys. He’s a Emmy award-winning

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producer. um it was three grand and he sends scripts ahead of time and they’re

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full commercials and it has director’s note but he says do not pre-eread them

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just look at the title get an idea what they’re about but do not read them and it’s like okay I’m because I’m used to

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cold reading and uh so we have the session and he goes okay here’s what I want you to do and then you’ll read it

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what they call dry with not recording it read it okay here’s what I want you to do when you say this sentence I want you

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to be a little bit more dra drag this out a little bit. I want to pause between these two words and you’re highlighting on the script, making

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notes. And then you do two or three cuts. And then he’ll take those three

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cuts and he’ll cut them all up into slices and put the best parts all together. And then he’ll edit it down. A

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30-cond commercial. He’ll edit that down to maybe five or six seconds. And then we’ll go to the next one and the next

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one and the next one. And what you’re capturing in that demo is hard cell, soft cell, you know, narration, podcast

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intro, all these different styles and paces and things like that. And then he produces it and it is it is astounding

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what what they can do and how good you can sound when it’s done properly. So

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that’s and then um and then you know about once a year. Yeah. I spend about $3,000 on a on a new demo.

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Wow. And um yeah, it’s uh but it’s good because you got to stay you want to stay fresh. You know, I’m always adding new

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material to my YouTube channel all the time and uh things like that. It’s uh

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but then then you can find a niche I should or a niche I should say. Some people, you know, they’re just great at

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video games. They’re just awesome, but they couldn’t do a commercial to save their lives. Um I’m still so at video

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games. um you know if it’s an easier part. Uh audiobooks pay well but I don’t

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really like doing them because they require long-term focus and

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I have a very short attention span. So I have I have to really fight to stay focused.

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Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s a toughy. But um but it’s good once they’re out, you know, and they’re on, you know, ACX or

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Amazon and uh stuff like that. But it’s it’s enjoyable. It’s fun and you can

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make money at it, but you have to go in with your eyes wide open. You have to be able

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to Hey, if you don’t get a, you know, and you do a lot of auditioning, you know, I get I get invitations to

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audition every day. I probably 10 auditions a day. And then, but you don’t think about it. People go, “Oh, I really

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want that part.” No, you don’t really want anything. You just do it. And if they call, they call. If they don’t,

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they don’t. Because if you get emotionally attached to these auditions and the rejection will just tear you

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down and you you just got to forget about it. It’s it’s not about rejection.

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So you’re getting a lot of auditions. You I mean obviously you’re getting a lot of business and you can kind of work you know as much as you want. How would

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you say other than like you know referral in the business building up? How are you getting new new leads and

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new clients? Is there anything specific you’re doing marketing wise? Um you I know we met on Alignable. I imagine

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you’re probably doing some networking there. What What do you find working the best and what what all you do?

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That’s um basically um I don’t do a lot of marketing, but yeah, speaking of

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alignable, I got hooked into these smart events and um I can see now where that’s

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going to be a huge a huge push for me in the direct side of the business where

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people can hire me directly because they’re small business people. They might advertise on the local radio

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station or TV or they might be a car dealership and wow sometimes they don’t even they were thought about having a

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voiceover guy but where would I find one? Do I just hire the local DJ? Well, now they find me and it’s just like hey

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I mean I can just hire you for 100 bucks you can do me a 15-second commercial. It’s like yeah you can. And um so gets

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people gets the wheels turning and now I get leads like crazy because you’re meeting people face to face like what do

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they call alignable? Those smart events are like speed dating for small business. Yeah, something like that.

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Yeah, they’re really cool. Meet a lot of people quick. I met a guy yesterday on Alignable

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that he’s logged over 3,000 conversations. Wow. On Alignable.

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And he said that there’s nothing better for his business. I actually met a guy in there the other

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Go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say I met a guy on there the other day that said he’s met like 30,000 business owners since he started

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doing it like I don’t know how many years ago and he does them like all day every day, isn’t it?

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Yeah. It’s wild. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of Oh, I I try to do three smart events a day and it’s like

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wow. Yeah. And I’ve gotten to where I like to do one a day.

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Yeah. That’s kind I’ve only been at it like three weeks. You me too. I just kind of started messing with it and I was like, “This is

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really cool. I’m meeting a lot of really interesting people on there.” Um, I think some opportunities, you know, and

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it’s Yeah, it’s fun. I love talking with business owners and just hearing what people are doing to make money and just

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like we’re doing now, right? Is there any unexpected Oh, go ahead.

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No, no, go ahead. I was just going to ask you if there’s any unexpected like channels that have brought you business that you never

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would have guessed that you would have gotten business from. Um, I think car dealerships where I’ve

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always wanted to do them. I was a kid, you know, and Subaru just came out of

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the blue. Um, pretty much every Subaru dealer um, west of the Mississippi in a

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good portion of the Southeast, it’s either me or it’s me doing the tag.

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mean, you know, um I think the tags are like uh for more information on this and more, you know, see your local Subaru

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dealer in Miami of whatever. It’s like Subaru of Miami. Um I just And then

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they’ll have me full 30 secondond commercials and they’ll have somebody else do the tag. So that surprised me

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which gave me Then I started doing Tiner Williams Chevrolet in London, Kentucky. And then I do the whole Friendship

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Family dealerships out of Tennessee and um what is it? um Capital CJD and Garner

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and uh geez just yeah car dealers in fact well Fenton Ford out of Camden New York it just kind of led into that and I

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love doing them because you can do soft selling you can do the you know the friendship dealerships are like you know

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72hour sale you know you’re doing that that where you’re just screaming and it’s it’s a lot of fun it’s a lot of

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fun. Yeah that’s awesome. Have you um run into anything where you’re like, “Oh,

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this was a mistake to try this marketing channel or or this method that you were just like, this has been a waste of time

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that you would avoid in the future.” Yeah, I it sounds just just personal

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opinion. It’s LinkedIn was a complete waste of time for me because I need to be to do the TV and

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radio what they call imaging like 99.9 KKJR, you know, stuff like that. um

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called creative services directors and I’ve done stuff for like NBC5 in Chicago and uh X radio out of um Spain

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and uh but to get those jobs you have to go to creative services directors

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whether it’s radio or TV and they’re all over they’re all over LinkedIn and I’ve

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been I’ve emailed everybody I could find on LinkedIn for a solid three months just introductory hey here’s a link to

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my demo like to work with you someday Okay. You know, just keep me in mind. Um, nothing. Not one, not one response.

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That’s surprising, huh? Yeah. Where now, if I just call or email

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just random radio stations, I have a list of radio stations and TV stations. Um, if I email them directly,

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I, you know, I get responses. Hey, yeah, we’ll keep you in mind. Hey, thanks. It sounds good. Are you available for this or that? So nice

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that LinkedIn I think everybody gets so inundated with everybody that wants to do business. They just disregard 90% of

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their messages in their inbox. It’s changed over the last few years. I’ve noticed that it just seems like

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people are are their guards up a lot more on there than it used to be because there’s so many people that are just

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spamming the hell out of everybody, you know, on there. There’s there’s no like relationship building or anything. They

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just as soon as they’re in your inbox, they’re just u bombarding you with like, hey, like let’s do business together.

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And it’s like, I’m not even interested in what you’re doing, you know? Yeah. What are you doing? Yeah. I don’t

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I don’t I’m not in the market for an electric turtleneck sweater. It’s just please leave me alone. And uh

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but I also have an automatic UFO detection device, you know. It’s like just leave me alone. Um, so that’s and

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that’s I liked I just couldn’t believe that because I can see the complete potential and I’m

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not trying to sell anything unalignable, but the potential of this meeting people face to face and building those and

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getting referrals. Yesterday I met some people. It’s like I’ve got people. They’re going to contact you tomorrow. I’m calling you tomorrow. And it’s like,

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wow, that’s awesome. This is crazy. Um, yeah. Done a lot of cold calling, believe it

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or not. Um, I built a studio in my RV. I built a studio in my RV and we went to Arizona for a couple months and uh,

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well, you know, I only work like an hour or so a day. So, I grab a handful of cards and I just go to production houses

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all over the valley of the sun and just say, “Hey,” and sure enough, within a day, hey, we got a job for you. Fidium

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Fiber, you know, the big internet company. Um, and stuff like that. The

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So, the cold calling, which most people are like, “Wow, cold calling.” It’s like it’s not bad. You know, you just

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Yeah. You walk in and go, “Hey, I just want to drop off a card. I’m a voice guy.” And uh you know, maybe add me to your

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roster. I’d really appreciate it. And then they’ll say, “Hey, hold on. I want you to talk to Ryan.” And it just it

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just goes from there. It’s um you can’t be afraid to fail, I guess, put it. You

25:26

just can’t be afraid of anything. Yeah. And so now when you’re saying cold

25:31

calling, it sounds like you’re going into a lot of business. Are you making picking up the phone, too? Is that kind of a combination of both or?

25:38

No. No. Just walking in. Just walking in. The phone is too The phone is too easy to push me aside. There’s too many

25:43

gatekeepers. If I walk into the front door and talk to somebody,

25:48

not going right into a pitch or anything, you know, hey Tammy, how’s it going today? It’s like, you know, what are you doing here on a Friday

25:54

afternoon? Shouldn’t you be off by now? And we get a little rapport going and I said, look, I just wanted to drop this off. No pressure. And well, if you can

26:02

if you can strike up something of a conversation first, it works. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome.

26:07

You can’t be shy. Worked a little bit too, it sounds like.

26:12

Cold email has has been okay and and and worked somewhat as well. You’ve got some business from cold email, too.

26:20

Um, very little. I I’ I’ve almost actually stopped because again, it’s so

26:26

these poor people just get inundated, you know? They don’t get inundated with people knocking on their front door.

26:32

True. True. You know, you walk in and Nobody wants to do that anymore. I’ve had people go, “Oh my god, we just we were just talking about we needed a

26:38

voiceover guy. I can’t believe you’re here.” And it’s like, “Hey, I just walked in the door randomly.” You know, and then

26:44

and then another thing I did, Arizona Bike Week, I’m a biker. Um but if you go

26:50

to any kind of trade shows, um I just walk to every booth and drop

26:55

off my card and take a card. Oh wow. some and then of course right away it’s called Ramlet Racing. Boom.

27:01

Got work from them immediately just because they they went my card has a QR

27:07

code on the back and uh there you go. I got some business just from handing out cards. But you can really meet a lot of

27:14

people and have fun doing it just by going to trade shows or gatherings of businesses. You know, anytime there’s

27:19

businesses, like if there’s a franchise show in town or if there’s small business things going on, go there and

27:25

hand out cards. It’s not a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And you’re It

27:30

seems like business is is so good for you know working for so many business

27:35

owners too. It’s like it’s not like you know something that’s a really specific

27:41

like you know niche niche niche industry that uh you know you can only do

27:46

business with this type of business like it works for so many businesses and you know they can hire you directly. Um

27:54

yeah. Is there is there any other industries that you really enjoy working with that you you’d like to get more of and you’re you’re working toward that?

28:02

Um my favorite is car commercials. I don’t know why I love the car commercial

28:08

thing, but um I get a lot of training videos uh like for coal mines and uh uh

28:16

nuclear power plants. Anybody that has to do with safety, they’re just long form. Sometimes it’s like 20 30,000

28:22

words, you know, because they’re putting together a video. So, when you are a new employee, you sit down in this box and

28:28

you watch this video and I’m telling you, you know, how to not get your hands chopped off. And um

28:35

yeah, and then like you mentioned, there’s so many industries I get I get amazing amount of work of religious work

28:42

and I never understood why I’ve most of the books I’ve done on Amazon are all religious based. Um, I

28:50

get a ton of work out of the Middle East, Israel, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. Um, because they need English

28:56

speaking. But you have to know how to pronounce names with the like Morai and Ro. You have to

29:05

be able to speak English and then all of a sudden the word will come up. You talk like this, you know, and it’s it’s

29:11

pretty wild. I had to do a Russian guy once. I’ve never spoke Russian, but I do

29:17

good Russian accent, you know. If you can do those parts that they’re just quick sentences, maybe drink a little vodka before you

29:23

get started to get you into the show. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

29:28

Yeah. And um I get I get a ton a ton of cowboy rancher. Um big r I mean

29:38

uh Tim McGra and Faith Hill. They had a big ranch in Tennessee. I did the voiceover when they sold that.

29:43

I do a lot of Texas. I do a lot of farm equipment. um Montana banks, Wyoming

29:49

banks, um anything. Boy, they want that rugged, you know, that uh they want that

29:55

Sam Elliot when he talks like this, you know, they like that kind of stuff. Yeah, that makes sense.

30:01

That’s awesome. It’s fun. You say you And I do I was just going to say you say, you

30:07

know, you work about an hour a day. Um how do you how do you make money in your business? I mean, obviously you’re

30:12

charging, you know, for the projects, but do you typically do like an hourly rate? Do you do a flat fee, combination

30:18

of both? And how do you schedule your your day to where um you can work about an hour a day? And does that include

30:24

like, you know, building business? I assume it probably doesn’t. You’re probably talking an hour of like paying

30:30

work a day and then you’re, you know, spend a little time like building your business, getting new leads, and doing

30:35

things like that or uh No, not really. It um the way I keep track, first of most everything goes by

30:42

word count. Okay. Like if you have a script and it’s 30 seconds, it’s usually around 65 to 75

30:48

words. So, you know, then okay, so let’s say it’s 100 bucks for that. And then you want Okay, but you want music,

30:53

that’s another 25 because I have an unlimited library of music of everything in the world. And uh you want music. Um

31:00

okay, and you want um but you want three different tags. So, you know, okay, so

31:06

you’re in at a couple hundred bucks, you know, and the thing with platforms that’s all paid up front and I and it’s

31:12

just released to me when I finish. So, that’s and then I have a spreadsheet here that I just made that um has

31:20

everything colorcoded. Green is delivered. Yellow, no, green is done. 11 yellow is delivered. Brown is in the

31:27

can. I just have to edit it. And uh red means I got to get it done. It has my due dates on it. And uh and then I get

31:34

work during the day, I just get notifications. Hey, you got a job. You got a job. You got a job. And I’ll respond and say, “Hey, thanks.” I’ll

31:40

look at it and or I have to send a quote. And then they they make the order and then the next morning I come in here

31:46

and go, “Okay, here’s what I got to do.” Um it never used to be that way because

31:52

I didn’t have a a process. When you’ve done it for a couple years, it’s just like, “Okay, boom, doom. This is all in

31:58

this order. I just read everything. I do everything.” And then I go back and okay, I’ll edit this, send it, I’ll edit

32:04

this, send it. This isn’t due for 3 days. I’m going to let it simmer because I might want to do a different tomorrow. You know, you you let your think about

32:11

things. Um I got one today that it was a longer project and um I know

32:17

what they want and I and I cut the first 15-second one and I sent it to them and I said, “I just want you to know this is

32:23

where we’re headed with it. Little bit too much coffee for 15 seconds. I got it to fit, but I don’t know if you want me

32:28

to talk that fast. So, let me know if you want if you want to cut the script down, but let me know if we’re on the

32:34

right tone and pace and everything before I read, you know, 600 700 words and they’re going to go, “Oh, man. We

32:40

didn’t want it like that.” So, sometimes you’ll send a little a little preview to make sure

32:46

everybody’s on the same page. So, yeah, makes sense. But, yeah, and then and that usually takes, you know, if I have four or five

32:51

commercials, it just doesn’t take that long. Yeah. And makes sense. How many can you typically knock out in them?

32:59

How many jobs? Oh, I’ve done like 10 or 12. Oh, wow. Yeah, 10 or 12. Yeah. My girlfriend, she

33:05

she has a high stress corporate job. We get up at the same time and I grab my coffee and I have a 20 foot commute and

33:13

I’m usually done by the time she’s ready to go to work and and I make I make more than her, you

33:20

know, I made double the mortgage payment today and uh I’m gonna go fishing.

33:25

Yeah, that’s the way to do it. You know, basically give gives me the finger and takes off and

33:33

that’s great. Yeah, it’s pretty it’s wild. Yeah, that’s that’s amazing. I never knock jobs out that quickly and

33:40

like just build your schedule up. Was it hard to like, you know, get that much business lined up to where it’s just constantly flowing and you can do that

33:46

every day or how difficult would you say that was? Yeah, I’ve done that. Yeah, sometimes

33:52

the but see now you can a lot of stuff isn’t new the next day. Like if somebody gave me a big training um well I just

33:58

did a I just did a book um out of Israel and it’s a it’s an old

34:05

story from the Torah and it was about 4,000 words and it had some

34:12

pronunciations that I had to get familiar with and then you have to edit it and I gave myself seven days for that

34:17

in the quote so I can record it in about two days and then as I’m editing I might

34:23

hit a sentence it’s like you know I don’t like the way I said that, I’ll re-record that sentence and edit that and I can take my time with it. So, if I

34:31

start getting six, seven, eight, nine jobs today, um, when I get new offers,

34:36

like, we need a we need a voiceover. Okay. Well, um I’m going to, you know, I’ll put in the quote 3-day delivery, 4

34:42

day delivery, just so I don’t get jammed because by mid-afternoon, if I had a

34:48

long day, if I’m in the middle of an audio book, you know, by 2:00, I’m talking like this, you know, if you’re

34:53

if you’re just hard at it, you know. Yeah. So, interesting. You give yourself time to you try to,

34:59

you know, there’s a there’s a search charge if somebody goes, “Hey, we like that Fenton Ford. It’s like, hey, we

35:05

need this right now.” Well, that’s like an extra 60 bucks because they needed it

35:10

within the hour, but they they know that ahead of time, so they just pay it and they get it. Yeah.

35:15

And uh so yeah, that’s it’s kind of how it works. I can kind of depending on my

35:21

workload, I can push things out or or get them done early if I feel like. Just all depends.

35:26

Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. What type of tools and are you using to help things

35:32

run smoothly? I mean, obviously you’ve got some tools and equipment specific to, you know, your recording and all that, but what else are you using that

35:38

helps keep everything in order? I use a I use this tablet and a spreadsheet

35:43

on Excel. Yeah, that’s good. A spreadsheet on Excel and that’s that’s really

35:51

that’s it. I got headphones and a keyboard. Um, I got my monitors. It’s It’s amazingly

35:58

simple, especially when I, you know, cuz I tried to duplicate the studio in my RV, but I just have one big monitor

36:04

instead of two. And um and it’s just amazingly simple. You

36:10

know, I just duplicated this. So, when I travel, I just start I plug a few things in and I’m working. It it works out

36:16

great. And uh so, you stay on the road for long periods of

36:22

time when you’re, you know, traveling and and Yeah. Arizona was two months.

36:27

Oh wow. And uh but I get to work every day. Now we’re going to I think at the beginning of September we’re going to go out to Colorado for a month and uh out there by

36:36

Estus, you know, we found our park and just set up shop. She they let her work remotely. Um every now and then she can

36:43

work remotely for a couple weeks here and there and so that works out good. And I’m just trying to get I can we’re

36:50

I’m waiting on her to be able to cuz we live in central Minnesota is to be able to uh escape winter entirely like

36:57

Oh yeah. stay for Christmas, you know, pat the grandkids on the head and say merry Christmas. We’ll see you guys in June.

37:03

We’re back when it’s warming. Yeah. It’s nice. Yeah.

37:08

Do you uh do you outsource anything or or delegate anything or have anybody that helps you with any aspect of your

37:14

business? audiobooks. I have a guy in Pakistan, Pakistan. His name is Newman or Nammen,

37:21

I don’t know. We I never talked to him, but he does all my audiobook editing.

37:26

He has special software. He has talent. I don’t ask questions. But I’ve done

37:32

150, 200,000word audio books and I just send him a chapter at a time when I’m

37:37

done. And he’s a he’s amazingly inexpensive and his work is flawless. So

37:44

I do I don’t even audio because then what not only does he edit it, he does it to ACX standards. So when the

37:51

customer gets it, they can upload it right to Amazon or um what’s the um

37:56

Audible. Um he does it to their standards. So I’m not versed in that.

38:01

I’d rather pay somebody a hundred bucks to do it. So and that’s the that’s about it for help, you know, if I need

38:08

something. and like graphics like my gig images and my YouTube. I hire people off of Fiverr, you know, just like, “Hey,

38:15

make me a new image. Make me this, make me that stuff.” Just simple stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Did you find your uh guy in

38:21

Pakistan off Fiverr, too? Yep. Yep. He’s my Fiverr guy. And now we’re friends on Facebook and we talk

38:28

all the time, but that’s awesome. Yeah, it is. It’s nuts how small the world is

38:34

now because of the internet. Yeah, it’s amazing. you can work with people all over the world and uh you

38:40

know a lot of times it makes good sense. What what would you recommend to somebody wanting to get involved in this

38:46

business? Um you know what what’s your top recommendation of you know how they would get started?

38:54

Talk to somebody first. Let them you know I want to sit I want to sit in a

38:59

studio. I want to see what you do. I want the entire thing explained before you do anything. get get with somebody

39:06

that does it. Um, you know, they say, you know, they can show you the good, the bad. It’s not there’s nothing bad.

39:12

It’s just that it’s more work than just talking. Um, you got to think about things. You

39:18

got to, you know, you got to make notes. You got to, okay, we got to get this in the right order, etc. So, um, yeah,

39:25

before you buy anything, sit down with somebody in voice over. And, uh, there’s

39:31

more voiceover people out there than you think. you can always find somebody near you, you know, if you just go on Google

39:36

and say voiceover artist near him. It’s like, hey, look at look at this. This guy lives 20 mi away. He’s got a studio. Um,

39:43

and uh it was I was I had some previous knowledge because of radio, so I kind of

39:48

knew a little bit what I needed to do, but um yeah, if you’re new to it and you think

39:54

you can do it, go sit down with a voiceover guy. Um, I’ve probably done that with 10 or 20 people already

40:01

studio, let them sit with me, and then they find out that maybe I’ll do something different

40:09

because because well, most people’s image the image is like, hey, I’m going to buy a microphone and I’m going to make $1,000 a day. And it’s like, no, it

40:16

doesn’t work like that. You’re not going to get famous or I mean, it’s rare. Um, you toil in anonymity, which is fine

40:22

with me. You know, you just do your thing and you get paid and you go about your life. It’s done.

40:28

Would you say there’s a a particular type of like personality fit that lends

40:33

itself well to to doing this type of work? Well, first of all, women do better than

40:39

men for whatever reason. Oh, interesting. They tend to get a lot at work. Um,

40:44

you you just you have to be comfortable with being a little bit animated. If you’ve ever seen videos of behind the scenes of like Disney flicks, you know,

40:51

and how they how they act and they use their hands and everything, that’s very it’s what happens. You know, when I do

40:57

my car commercials, I’m in here. If you looked at me through that glass door where you can’t hear me, I look like I’m insane. Um because you So, you can’t be

41:05

afraid to be animated. Yeah. And you have to have imagination. You got to be a little bit of a free

41:11

spirit. Um, you know, because directors sometimes director’s notes, they’ll use

41:18

the word sexual, you know, like a script will come along, it says, “Okay, now this is for, you know, when I hear um,

41:24

you know, I’ve had directions where they want it like, hey, you know, you want to do it like this, you know, they want

41:29

that they want that low and slow, you know, maybe Antonio Banderas, you know, and uh, and they’ll use they’ll use

41:37

sensual words and you can’t be offended by that, you know. They’ll They’ll use

41:42

even more graphic words. Look, I want it to sound like you’re like, “Wow.” Yeah.

41:47

Um, you know, are we is this for porn? What’s going on? Um, so you can’t

41:53

because it’s just lack, you know, they want a certain sound. No one can see you. So, and you can turn stuff down.

41:59

You can say, “I’m uncomfortable with that. One of my my gigs in fiber.” It’s like, “I don’t do x-rated stuff, you

42:04

know. I don’t do inappropriate things. I just don’t want to.” But there’s people that do, you know,

42:09

doesn’t matter. Um, yeah, maybe they can upcharge for that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And but no, you

42:16

have to you have to be a bit of a free spirit. You have to be kind of creative and kind of goofy and,

42:22

you know, Yeah. and uh inhibited, I guess. I got a question for you. Um,

42:29

you know, there’s a lot of services out there now like AI things that can do different voices and everything. How do

42:34

you differentiate yourself, you know, differentiate yourself from that? Um, and does that concern you at all with

42:40

what you do? It it does because there’s a lot of training companies now, they just use AI

42:46

because there’s no real emotion, you know, and I can come close. Um, a lot of

42:52

my business comes from, hey, here’s the ad we made with AI and we hate it.

42:58

We want you to, you know, they do it at kind they use AI as more of a placeholder. AI still needs a lot of

43:03

prompting. You know, you need things like that. um what AI can’t do.

43:09

It’s it’s hard for them. It’s hard for AI to breathe and maybe

43:15

maybe get a little emotional, you know, and yeah, I can see that a little boy came to me and there was a

43:20

tear in my eye and I AI can’t do that. It can’t slow down and speed up. Well, I

43:27

suppose it could if just like hours and hours of prompting, you know, and all that kind of stuff. Yeah,

43:32

it has replaced Yeah, it a lot of AI stuff, but

43:37

yeah, it seems like we’re I mean, maybe there’ll be a day, but it seems like right now we’re a ways out from it being

43:44

able to take somebody like yours, you know, your place on really, you know, being able to to do what somebody’s

43:50

looking for and be able to take that direction. I mean, there’s only so much you can do with prompting, at least for my experience, that and most I mean, I

43:57

played with some AI voice tools. Um, you know, and the ones I’ve played with, there isn’t really any prompting. It’s

44:03

just, you know, you type in what you want to say and it’s going to say it how it says it. There’s nothing else you can do with it. There’s probably others out

44:08

there that, you know, can can do more than that. But, yeah, I can see it would be really difficult if you’re looking for something very specific at all to

44:15

really get that out of AI. True. And we get as voiceover people, we

44:21

get offers, it’s called, you know, text to talk or transcribing for to train an

44:26

AI model. They’ll just say, “Hey, we want your voice to train an AI model. How much would you charge?” And my flat rate is 100,000.

44:33

And they’re like, “What?” And it’s like, “Well, you’re going to train my voice.” Yeah. And use it for your product for in

44:39

perpetuity. No, it’s 100k. I’m not doing it. And most most a most voiceover people

44:46

agree on that. any request we get for AI training. Oh, sorry. Unless you’re new

44:52

and you don’t you’re not wise to that, you know. Oh, it pays it pays 50 bucks. And it’s like, yeah, I bet it does

44:57

one time. Yeah, I’d pay 50 bucks, too. Um, yeah, we get God, we get or YouTube, there’s

45:04

people on YouTube that we have four, you know, we have four scripts a re a week of 4,000 words and, you know, it’s

45:11

steady work for the next 52 weeks. And it’s like, wow, that’s pretty good. What do you get for 4,000 words? And it’s just like, well, that’s like 7800 bucks

45:18

fully edited. And they’re like, oh, well, we have a budget of $40.

45:23

Who’s who’s reading these scripts for you for 40 bucks? You know, it’s Yeah, that’s crazy.

45:29

Everybody wants There are some scammers out there. Yeah. That everybody wants something for nothing, you know. I see that a lot.

45:36

Just people don’t know something, you know? Right. And that’s where relationships

45:42

come in, you know. I have I have really strong good relationships. People come back to me. We we know each other. We

45:48

email and it’s like, “Hey, Karl, we got this. What do you think?” And uh you know, it’s a it’s a collaborative effort

45:54

effort, I guess. And uh and once you build that and keep growing that, the

45:59

fear of the AI thing kind of goes away. Um yeah, but it’s, you know, you got to work at

46:05

it. You know, you got to you got to want to communicate with your customers. You got to want to be there. You you can’t just

46:11

go, “Oh, you got a voiceover. Okay. Thanks. Bye. It’s like, “Hey, Chuck, what’s going on?”

46:16

Yeah. Yeah. Anything worth doing is going to take a little bit of effort? Yeah, for sure.

46:22

Yeah, definitely. So, if you had to start over, recommend it.

46:27

Yeah. If you had to start over, was what would you do differently if anything?

46:35

If I had to start over Oh, I know. I’d start way earlier. If I knew it was going to be like this, I’d have done it 10 years ago.

46:41

Yeah. There you go. You know, you get preoccupied. You know, I had to go, you know, I was married to

46:46

Satan’s life coach, so I had to go to through a divorce and and so you don’t

46:51

you’re not thinking of opportunities like this. But um Oh, if I if I would have started 10

46:59

years ago instead of five years ago, oh, that would have been something else. But um

47:05

in my case, it was a different case because I kind of hit the ground running with knowledge. But now with the

47:10

internet and there’s so many good guys on YouTube. He guy’s named Michael Delgatoio. He’s he’s an amazing

47:17

voiceover guy. But you can just watch him and he’ll help you. He’ll get you how to set up your settings and Reaper

47:23

and he’ll tell you how to set up your audio interface and what’s good, what’s bad. He compares microphones. He It’s

47:30

just so much education. It’s insane. Um there’s all sorts of guys like that on

47:35

on YouTube um that you can learn from and experiment with. And yeah, that uh

47:43

Michael Delgato I I got to give it I got a ton of information. And Bill Diz

47:48

again, he has a weekly or daily uh video chat, you know, where you can tune in

47:55

and always good information, you know, what to do, what’s good in the industry.

48:01

And like next year there’s this big VO conference every year in Atlanta. Um I haven’t gone yet but now I think this

48:07

year I will I’ll fly down to Atlanta. It’s a big VO conference and again just so you can meet people in the in the

48:13

business. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. No, it’s it’s uh it’s a very

48:19

interesting business model and it sounds like you’ve been really successful with it and it’s really been fun to hear about, you know, how you’ve kind of got

48:26

into this and what you’ve done with it and uh very impressive. Very impressive. I think you’ve, you know, answered

48:32

most of the questions I had. Uh, just one last question before we kind of start wrapping things up. What’s the best advice you’ve ever heard, you’ve

48:39

ever received? Um, the best advice

48:45

I think it was goes back to that to the audition thing is um you you got to get

48:52

it out of your head. Do it how you would do it and forget about it. And I don’t care if you have to do 50 a day. That’s

48:58

your job. Your job is to try to find 50 people every day to say no or get as many auditions and you reverse the

49:05

psychology. It’s like, hey, I got to get turned down like 25 times today. I’m busy. Well, if you keep that in your head,

49:11

getting turned down is just it doesn’t carry. Don’t give it so much weight. Just I don’t care if you don’t pick me.

49:17

I don’t care. I only care about the people that pick me. And even though they’re few and far

49:22

between, that’s just the nature of the beast. And if you can’t handle that, then this isn’t it. Um,

49:30

you just you can’t give it any power. Hey, I audition and then I go about my business.

49:35

Yeah, sometimes. And that was the best that’s probably the best. Play the numbers game. Yeah, that’s great advice. I love that.

49:41

Well, where can people go to learn more about your business, Karl, and work with you? They can go to well

49:48

Karlshowbergvo.com and uh yeah, people can call me, they

49:54

can email me. Um I can give them send them links and stuff. I’m more than happy to help anybody. That’s not a

49:59

I like sharing that kind of stuff, but yeah. Yeah, I don’t know if you can post my website or whatever, but absolutely not

50:06

not a big deal at all. Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, I appreciate that and I’m sure the listeners will too. you know, there might be somebody

50:11

out there that’s thinking about this or they are thinking about it now and want to get into it. So, I really appreciate

50:17

that. Are there are there any promos or offers or anything like that you’ve got going right now that you want anybody to to be aware of

50:24

or something you do regular? No, not really because like I say, I’m more of the I like in being the

50:30

introductory guy, you know? Yeah. I’d like to say one more thing. This is nothing you have to jump into. You can start little bit part-time. You can play

50:37

with it, you know. That’s the other thing. It’s like I’m starting a VO career tomorrow. No, you’re not. You can just play with it at night like I did,

50:43

you know, just yeah, tow the waters and but no, um, you know, usually if someone really wants to learn it and they want

50:49

in-person coaching, like even over the internet like this, and they really want to get going, um, the usual rate for

50:55

that for me was a thousand bucks and, uh, basically I spend a month with you getting you all set up, coaching you,

51:02

getting you turned on to the right people and all that kind of stuff. It’s put it this way that thousand bucks will

51:08

probably save you 5,000 in the long run and it’ll save you six months of learning. You know, I learned everything by

51:13

myself. If you if we do this together, you’re going to get everything I learned in a

51:19

matter of just a couple of weeks. And it saves a ton of time. Oh, yeah.

51:24

I’m glad you mentioned that. Yeah, that’s that’s great. So, you still do the the coaching and you you’re willing to do that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

51:30

Awesome. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Yeah, get you in and get you started and off you go.

51:36

Well, I appreciate your time, Karl. This has been really fun to to hear about your business and uh yeah, I think you’re doing some really cool stuff and

51:42

it’s a great opportunity, it sounds like, for somebody that maybe wants to get into it and they should take you up on that coaching. Yeah.

51:49

Well, thanks, Ryan. I appreciate it. And I don’t know what’s going on. I’m getting on podcast now. I have another one scheduled for next week.

51:56

Awesome. So, this is this is this is new to me, but I’m digging it. It’s a lot of fun. So, I appreciate you. It’s been fun.

52:02

It’s It’s good stuff. Absolutely. Appreciate your time and uh yeah, thanks for coming on and yeah, enjoy the rest of your day and uh yeah,

52:09

be talking again soon hopefully. Have a good weekend. Yeah, we’ll talk to you again. All right. Thanks, Ryan. Thank you.

52:14

Bye. You’ve been listening to the Bisgrow Mojo podcast with Ryan Amen. Make sure

52:22

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52:28

the Bisgrow Mojo Podcast.