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Find the Right Coach for Your Voiceover Career
51 Plays1 year ago
Join Will Vincent, Al Moulliet and Victoria Prather, in a candid and informative discussion about navigating the world of voiceover coaching. In this episode, we dive deep into the process of finding, vetting, and choosing the right coaches for your voiceover career. We share our personal experiences, the lessons learned from both good and bad coaching, and offer practical advice on what to look for and what to avoid. Whether you're new to the industry or looking to refine your skills, this episode is packed with valuable insights to help you make informed decisions in your voiceover journey. Tune in and learn how to find the coach that's just right for you!
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Transcript
College Experiences and Humorous Lessons
00:00:00
Speaker
College must have been tough. Or college was actually really, really a fun time. What did you learn? I learned how to do keg stands nude. Whoo! And don't fry bacon naked. That's good advice. Y'all are welcome. Yay!
Finding and Vetting Coaches in Voiceover
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome back. We made it. Whoo! So let's talk coaches. Vetting coaches. Finding coaches. OK.
00:00:30
Speaker
All right, let's do that. Yeah. Good coaches, bad coaches. Football coaches, or what are we talking about? No, definitely voiceover. Definitely. Oh, voiceover. Definitely industry related. Come into the group, Al. We'll learn things. I'm here. I'm in. Yeah, OK. So research, I think that first and foremost, that has always been the number one thing to tell somebody, do your research. There's a lot of coaches out there. There's a ton of them.
00:01:00
Speaker
So there's a lot of people that say they're coaches, too. I think we have an abundance of that right now. Way too many folks out there, you know, they I don't even know if some of these people have booked things like they, you know, the experience level. And you got to wonder, right? Some of the people who have started coaching. Mm hmm.
00:01:21
Speaker
Are they coaching because they're good teachers and they have something to actually teach or are they coaching because they're not booking enough and they need income? It's probably some of both. I'm going to say yes. Yeah. I would also say this to anyone listening to this podcast. We are not coaches. We are not going to present ourselves as know-it-alls of any sort. We're you.
00:01:49
Speaker
we hopefully we say what you're thinking. Maybe you'll pick up something along the way, maybe we'll learn something.
Learning from Bad Coaches and Financial Considerations
00:01:55
Speaker
Can I also say that sometimes those bad coaches also teach you a lot in terms of what you don't want to replicate, what you don't want to do again. That goes for coaches across the board. My husband usually says that about baseball coaches for our son. Absolutely. It's the bad coaches that can teach you too.
00:02:18
Speaker
I think that goes for life in general. It's mindset. Harkening back to a couple episodes ago.
00:02:26
Speaker
Indeed. Although I think it's also financial. It's very financial. But if you have a bad experience with a coach and you only focus on the bad, then that's not going to help you. But even the worst situations typically have something that you can learn from. And even if I wasted that money, you learned something. You learned to research or what is the word? To audit a coach.
00:02:55
Speaker
Yeah, to vet your coach. Sure. To vet your coach properly. Sure. Go try, you know, see if they offer the ability to sit in on a coaching session that they may have or, you know, just research them a lot online. Find out if you're anyone in your circle, any of your voice actor friends have coached with them. Exactly. Yeah, just ask. Just ask.
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah.
Choosing the Right Coach by Genre Specialization
00:03:19
Speaker
Somebody's heard of these people. Yeah. So I guess the first question then is how do you find coaches? And there's lots of resources. Obviously talking to people is one of them. What other resources do we have? We've got the vorg. Right. The voiceover resource guide, which always sounds like a space, like sci-fi thing, right? The vorg. But it's quite helpful. It's like a combination of the vogans and the vorg. Exactly. Yeah, that. We are vorg. Our poetry is
00:03:48
Speaker
But also understand, asking folks, their coach may not be good for you. It's not like across the board. So how do you find that right coach? Well, start where you are.
00:04:00
Speaker
What are your interests? Find a coach that does that. Yeah. Determine what genres they coach in. Not every coach does everything. Nor should they. Right. And I would say even like if you find one who says, oh yeah, I coach for everything, that's probably a red flag. That's probably somebody that you don't want to coach with. Maybe not across the board. Right.
00:04:22
Speaker
But it's something that should, you know, raise a little alert in your head to go. Hmm, maybe I need to think about this or at least find out more. Right. Right. Because typically I think a coach is probably going to be really proficient in one.
00:04:36
Speaker
maybe two or three at the most genres, right? Because depending on what it is, some of them are kind of similar, right? Corporate narration and e-learning are pretty similar. Explainers are kind of in that same realm. But commercial is quite a bit different than animation or gaming. So if you want to do commercial, which everybody should. Well, most agents, that's the demo they want. Well, sure. But if you're not interested, don't, because that leaves more for me.
00:05:06
Speaker
It is about you. Everything is about me. You should know that by now. I mean, come on. But no, if you're not really interested in commercial, even though every agent pretty much wants a commercial demo, maybe you don't prioritize it. Maybe if you really you just want to do anime or games and nothing else, then sure, do that. But then find a coach who's specialized in that thing. Find a dubbing coach or find a gaming coach or animation coach.
00:05:35
Speaker
And maybe more than one, because everybody's going to have different viewpoints and different tips and whatever. And nobody's necessarily wrong. I think ultimately what you need to do is you need to learn the skills, you know, sort of the baseline of skills and then apply them in the way that makes sense to you for your art. So how would they fit in your life? Right. Right. So they're life coaches. Yeah. So, for example, I have sort of a film background. Spielberg's here.
00:06:06
Speaker
I'm not bragging, I'm just relating my life experience. But film is a language, right? And so you have to kind of learn and understand the basics of the language, you know, what the 180 degree rule is and stuff like that, so that you can tell a cohesive story visually. And you need to learn those
00:06:28
Speaker
before you choose to break those rules, right? And very much like language, right? So I could say, use guys, and you'll know what I'm saying, but grammatically, that's not correct. But I should learn the correct way of saying, use guys before I choose to say the wrong thing. You know what I mean? All of you. Yes.
Voiceover Learning vs. Language Learning
00:06:50
Speaker
So and I think learning a specific skill, learning a genre of voiceover is kind of the same thing. There's there's going to be certain rules and skills and guidelines and whatever that you should understand. Sure. Before you choose to go off and do it different so that you can do it different on purpose, not just because you don't know better. Sure.
00:07:12
Speaker
Being a former musician, I completely understand. Songwriting, music is a language. Music is a sentence, a structure. To create a song, you have to know the language. Unless you're playing jazz. Freestyle jazz, complete excuse to play the wrong note.
00:07:31
Speaker
Thank you for saying that out loud. That's exactly, I thank you. I'm just going to leave it at that. It hurts your brain, doesn't it? It's so, so much, so much brain hurt. I do not like jazz. I know. Yeah. I like blues. Don't like jazz. So shame on me. Shame. But it's true. I mean, so I actually do have a master's in education.
00:07:55
Speaker
specializing in working with adults. It's called Andragogy versus Pedagogy, which is teaching of children. I learned how to work with adults and the technologies that are used to teach in terms of learning management systems, LMS. So that's my nerd spiel.
00:08:19
Speaker
And it's very specific in terms of how people learn.
Predatory Practices and Credibility Verification
00:08:23
Speaker
You should be very adept at e-learning. I should be. I'm very critical when it comes to wanting to work with a coach because I think the thing is, is because we're adults.
00:08:34
Speaker
We usually enter into the realm already with these preconceived notions in terms of, I know that. I know that. You know, you don't teach me something I don't know. That's basically how most adults sit down in a classroom or they're like, I've paid my money because I also taught college. So I've paid my money. I want my A. Like, yeah, you still have to work for it. That's kind of how that works. But when it comes to voice over coaches. Teach me something I don't know. Right?
00:09:04
Speaker
Finding someone who has that level of understanding, of working, and not just talking at people, what? But actually bringing them along so that they understand the concepts of, what do you do when you get a script? A lot of people wing it. I mean, okay. If that's your process, fine. But I find that coaches should really
00:09:34
Speaker
also be mentoring you along the way, and finding folks that you just work well with. It's important. And I've had a slew of different coaches. And again, I've had some bad experiences with coaches. And coaching programs, knowing that there's not just one, but a few that offer a community college
00:10:01
Speaker
come in and learn about voiceover and then they start kind of really selling their wares as a demo mill, right? And that's kind of a model that seems to work for folks and they feel like, well, it's being offered at a community college, therefore it must be legit. Must be valid, yeah. No, it's not. And a lot of these folks that are in those programs are really good people, but, you know, I had
00:10:29
Speaker
my coach tell me today too well you know apparently oh shoot how did she say it because I don't want to say it out loud if it's not right and anyway a really bad person was a good you know people thought he'd treat cats well or something so it was like huh that's true that's true there are very good people doing bad things so I wish I could quote it I just don't want to because it's
00:10:56
Speaker
It seems like it would be inappropriate if I misquoted, especially when there's- Is that similar to those who can't do teach? And those who can't teach, teach Jim. Yes. There you go. And lots of it. Who's Jim?
00:11:13
Speaker
Well, if any of you guys have seen the Kaminsky method, which is awesome, that's that whole problem that he's having is the main character is like, well, yeah, he really wants to be back as an actor, but instead he's teaching, right? And I think that's something we should also be aware of.
Personal Experiences with Notable Coaches
00:11:33
Speaker
A lot of these folks that are touting themselves as coaches haven't been on the mic in ages. Or ever.
00:11:40
Speaker
or ever. But they're saying that they had the experience. You don't necessarily have to have ever been on the mic to be able to teach it. As long as you've been around it, you know, as a director or something or whatever, right? You don't necessarily have to have been on the talent side to be able to teach how to do it. No, you can be on the casting side or something like that. But folks that don't have that,
00:12:05
Speaker
If you've only ever been talent and you know, you're going to say, well, I'm a coach. Right. And maybe you haven't looked anything in three or four or five years. Well, are you actually teaching anything worthwhile?
00:12:20
Speaker
Or are you just really making money coaching? Yeah. Yeah. What can you teach me how not to book for three, four, five years? Thanks. Great. So glad I spent that money. And I think that's really because this is a, I hate to use a term, but it is very predatory. We're finding folks that are not skilled, should not be teaching. Period. And then there's some like, I waited a really long time.
00:12:48
Speaker
to work with someone just waiting for the right time, waiting for the right situation and came across like the reputation's there.
00:12:59
Speaker
I know people that have worked with her. I know some people actually put out information that may or may not be 100% true, but it's usually her competitors that just want to make sure that don't coach with that person. And she's really like the best in the business. So you gotta look for- I mean, we don't have to hide her name. See it, see it. Nancy Wolfson. She's my coach. I still work with her. I went through her entire curriculum.
00:13:28
Speaker
I am a graduate of the Brain Tracks Audio Program. I still work with her every few months. She's amazing. Yeah. Nancy, if you're listening to this, these two people love you. She knows. I just started and I was just so excited to work with her. I've also worked with for a really long time and I do like this program. I learned a lot and it wasn't until I started with it.
00:13:57
Speaker
that things changed for me. And I did start booking. I started doing things. His name is David H. Lawrence the 17th. It's a really long story about his name. I resisted training. I think that's really important. And no matter what program you're looking into, I resisted having to get into any kind of program because I had the broadcasting background.
Investing in Training Beyond Equipment
00:14:19
Speaker
So I thought, no, I know this stuff.
00:14:22
Speaker
But radio and television and news and broadcasting in general is not voiceover. It's not the same. I mean, there's transferable skills, certainly. Breath control. 100%. Absolutely. 100%. But you got to dial the enunciation back most of the time because nobody wants that. Right.
00:14:45
Speaker
And I was actually told by one of my reps to not tell casting that I have a background in radio because it kind of puts a barrier, if you will, thinking, oh, she's going to come in and I'm just going to talk like this the entire time. Well, it gives them something to look for. Right.
00:15:02
Speaker
gives them a reason to say no. And if they go, exactly. Yeah, you used to be in radio, so now I'm going to listen for you to be too announcery and go, haha, exactly. Yeah. So but it wasn't until I took that step, like, OK, and I started asking, started doing my research. And, you know, I looked at some of these price points going, oof, that's. Oh, yeah. Which is probably another reason you're seeing
00:15:31
Speaker
less qualified coach, people saying their coach has come out because it's not cheap and people are willing to spend the money. Right. But once again, you kind of get what you pay for most of the time. There's certainly exceptions, right? And, you know, if you're
00:15:52
Speaker
If you don't want to play at the top level, book in national spots and whatever, then maybe you don't need the top level coach.
00:16:02
Speaker
you know, maybe some local Yahoo who's charging you 30 bucks an hour, who's gonna teach you the basics of how to be around a microphone so that you can sound like a local voice talent and do local ads and never go beyond that. If that's all you care about, maybe that's all you need. But if you actually wanna pursue it as a business, you wanna be able to go after the big stuff and the little stuff and everything. And so that means you need to work with the best people you can
00:16:33
Speaker
as often as possible to build up your skill set so that you can go up against the people that you're competing with for those jobs who've been doing this for 30 and 40 years, who can do it in their sleep.
00:16:47
Speaker
Because this industry has become, especially, I think, even more so since 2020 has really become saturated. Oh, for sure. So if you have to invest, it's part of the investment, right? We talked about your environment. That's part of the investment. Notice I did say training before environment, though.
00:17:09
Speaker
Well, you said that the last one also with the, uh, the room. Yeah. Yeah. Environment is the most important part of your, your vocal chain. Vocal chain. But more important than that is your training. Because if you don't know what you're doing, you could sound awesome and still suck. And you don't want to make that impression, right? You don't want to go out there and say, I'm ready. And then you don't want to read, you don't want to read every piece of commercial copy, like a guy smiley from Sesame street.
00:17:38
Speaker
You had to pick Guy Smiley. But let's be fair, that's Nancy's term. Not mine. Yeah. Oh, is it? Oh, OK. All right. I was having a flashback to a really bad interaction in Burbank. It was a whole thing. It's kind of a, yeah. So we'll leave that there. Oh, yeah. Research. Find out who your peers, who they're going to. Peers that are actually booking helps. Find out who they recommend. If they're not booking, their opinion maybe doesn't matter as much.
00:18:08
Speaker
But that actually helps. Who made your demo? I usually ask that too, and then I'm like, oh. Hope you get some good mileage with that. Yeah. Sometimes coaches don't do demos. So yeah, asking the question, who did your demo? That could be a completely different podcast. Indeed. And if they don't, you may be better off.
00:18:32
Speaker
because then you're guaranteed pretty well that it's not a demo mill, right? Sure. True. And or you should make sure that they're not saying, oh, well, after eight classes or however many, we'll get you on the schedule for a demo. It should not work that way. Well, why don't we talk red flags then? Those two are not related. That's kind of a nice segue into red flags. Sure. So what are some red flags?
00:19:02
Speaker
to watch out for from coaches. Obviously that's a, that's a good one. You know, we're going to have, you know, six sessions or eight sessions, and then you'll be ready for a demo. Well, that's a big red flag. Cause if you've never done voiceover before and you have no clue, you're not going to be ready in eight sessions. If you have a clue, but you're still new, you're not going to be ready in eight sessions. It could be months. It could be a year. It could be years.
Recognizing Red Flags and Personal Fit in Coaching
00:19:29
Speaker
It takes the amount of time it takes.
00:19:31
Speaker
I know that I had interactions with my coaches prior to starting work with them, but I should be able to find them online in what they're doing and what they have done. They should have something on IMDB. Maybe. Maybe. I mean, for commercial work, that's not going to be on there necessarily, but you should be able to see their body. You should be able to find something you think. Right.
00:20:01
Speaker
And when you interact with them about their program, if they don't ask you, what have you done previously? I think that's a red flag. Like if they don't care that- Or what your goals are. Yeah, like, sure. Hey, yeah, we come on into the program.
00:20:19
Speaker
just pay me the money and come on in. That's awesome. If they don't ask what your interests are, so they can say, I'm not that guy. Let me refer to you. I'm sure most coaches probably don't do that. But I would hope that at least a good chunk of them do, that when they first meet somebody before you start training with them, they find out what you're interested in, what your goals are.
00:20:46
Speaker
And if they're not the right coach for you, tell you that. Yeah. Don't take my money. Like respect the fact that I'm going to pay you thousands of dollars over the next year enough to say, you know what?
00:21:00
Speaker
I would love to work with you, but I don't do XYZ, you know, or I'm not honestly not the best coach for video game work. Instead, I would recommend this person or this person or this person. But if you want to work on commercial or you want to work on whatever else they do do, you know, then yeah, let's do it if you're interested in that. But if you really don't want to pursue this thing that I'm really best at,
00:21:27
Speaker
I don't want to take your money." I would hope that a coach would say that. No, I don't expect most do. I'm sure some do. I'm sure some do. Like Nancy, I know isn't going to take somebody who only wants to do video games.
00:21:43
Speaker
You know, because her thing is commercial. Right. Right. I'm sure she'd be happy to refer you to somebody if that's the only thing that you want to do. She might also tell you that you're stupid if you don't want to do commercial, which if you don't want to do commercial, that is kind of stupid. She probably wouldn't phrase it that way, but probably not. Because I mean, there are some folks that I know of that they that's just not their thing.
00:22:07
Speaker
They would rather do e-learning or corporate narration or something like that, because commercialism just sounds icky. Even if that's a good income for a lot of folks, they would still rather do something different. Sure. Here's something off topic. If you can believe that, I'm going to throw something off topic. What? I know. In your opinion,
00:22:34
Speaker
What's more competitive, commercial or the e-learning? I would say commercial. I would also agree. Commercial. Okay. Well, people listening to this would be wise to hear that because you're right. Because if you're going to throw yourself into the commercial pit, you better be ready for it because that's where everyone wants to be. There's your competition.
00:23:02
Speaker
You know, if you're choosing this as a hobby, you may not want to jump in that pool. If you're just going to pursue this as a hobby, then honestly, you're probably best off seeking out, you know, fandom animation stuff and, you know, doing royalty share audio books or something, you know, because you really like to read. True. Or better yet, do them for free for LibriVox because it supports, you know,
00:23:29
Speaker
who need assisted reading. Sure, sure. But yeah, certainly you wouldn't want to try out for commercial if you're not. That's actually a good topic because I think that... If you're not interested in pursuing it as a business, there's the level of competition
00:23:44
Speaker
for commercial and, you know, higher end animation and video games. It's so high that I think you'd just, you wouldn't be able to take it. You'd be too discouraged, I think. Because you have to really want it. Don't you find it interesting, though, how many people will
00:24:04
Speaker
come into voiceover and that's what they wanna focus on. They really wanna do animation. It's like everybody on Twitter. Yeah, exactly. I mean, hey, I'm one of them. I'm not gonna lie, I like all the genres. Absolutely. I would love to be in a Pixar film or a Dreamworks film or something. 100% would love it. Right? Yeah. And it's, you know, it's highly competitive. It even takes it up a notch because now you're up against celebrities.
00:24:34
Speaker
So that's even like, oh, okay. But I think going back to coaches though, they should be getting that information from you and asking that, like where do you see
Career Guidance vs. Skill Teaching in Coaching
00:24:45
Speaker
yourself? What sort of genres are you interested in or mediums? And going from there. Well, they should be doing more than just teaching you how to speak. They should be guiding your career.
00:24:58
Speaker
your business. You're right. These things should be important questions. Depends on the coach though. Right. Like certainly you could get tips from, from any coach about, you know, how you should run your business, you know, how to, how to market or places. Maybe you should go apply for representation or something like that, especially after you've worked with them for a while because they know you, but I certainly wouldn't expect a coach who
00:25:23
Speaker
you know, their specialty is animation to recommend, you know, how I go about marketing to production companies or something. Oh, no, no, no, not like that. No, and that's not what I meant. I meant they should be doing everything in their coaching skills to get to have you be ready to do that line of work. Sure. Yeah. Sure.
00:25:48
Speaker
And the goal shouldn't be the demo. The demo is sort of ancillary, right? It's a piece of collateral that you need to do the work, to get the work. But that shouldn't be the goal. The goal should be to get you the skills that you need to book the work to make money because we're businesses and we're doing this to make money. You know, we're not just, I don't want to be a starving artist. Sorry. Nope. Sorry. Also. Anybody could be that.
00:26:14
Speaker
Also, I think it's important to look at the delivery of instruction. So, not everybody wants to do in person, and that's okay. There are folks that are, you know, they're doing that now. I know especially in the big cities, in LA, Chicago, New York, they have studio options.
00:26:37
Speaker
There are others who do things just by phone. Some use Zoom. So, I mean, there's different ways of delivery and instruction. And the three of us were also in a program that did, you know, took voice actors from all over and got together, was it every other weekend?
Benefits of Group Sessions and Workshops
00:26:57
Speaker
I think. Yeah, biweekly.
00:26:59
Speaker
Okay, I already forgot. But does that make you comfortable? I was comfortable in the group because everybody was at different levels. I just didn't have the time to invest anymore because it was a lot of prep work and a lot of
00:27:21
Speaker
You know, I'm also a baseball mom, so usually my weekends are busy and during the week doesn't work well for me either. So I kind of fell off that particular coaching method because it didn't work for me. And that's okay. What matters to you as a voice actor is going to determine who you work with and who will resonate with you best.
00:27:42
Speaker
So finding out through other folks, hey, have you ever heard of so-and-so? And if they did, oh, yeah, I coached with them for this, that, and the other thing. I also had a very specific promo coach that I worked with for my promo demo. And she was great. I ended up having a great outcome. But it was just a one-hour coaching session. I didn't need anything additional. If somebody asked me about it, I would say, yes, I had a very good experience. But I don't know how that would work for anybody else.
00:28:10
Speaker
How do you feel about short-term coaching lessons or workshops? Like workout groups? Yeah. Or if you need just a refresher. Sure. Like a three-hour workshop or something. Yeah. Yeah. I love them. That's kind of a blanket statement because they're not all good, but most that I've done have been really good.
00:28:33
Speaker
Some of those have been at conferences, One Voice and VU Atlanta in particular. Some have just been online through various sources. Ace Studios does some good ones. So the Acting and Voice Studio? Yeah, Acting and Voice Studio, Real Voice LA, all three of those have pretty good workshops and workouts and so forth. In fact, that's how I got my agent.
00:29:02
Speaker
But that's a little different. That's that's another podcast about workshops. Well, but but I would say you can find a good coach through them. It's also potentially a good option if you can't afford or for whatever reason, can't justify paying for one on one coaching. As a short term, less expensive solution, you could do
00:29:27
Speaker
group workouts or group coaching, which tends to be cheaper because you're in class with a group of people, it's not all you. But there's benefit there, right? Because you're seeing how other people interpret copy and the feedback they get. And then you do yours and you get feedback. And so you're learning not just from
00:29:50
Speaker
you know, feedback on your interpretation, but feedback to other people as well. And I did that for several months, almost every week. It's like six months, I think, with the voiceover gurus. They have online workouts and they were wonderful. I got a lot out of it. But I got to a point where it was kind of enough. It happens. Right. Right. I won't say that. I won't say that I grew it, but
00:30:20
Speaker
I was ready for something more, something different. And that was about the time that I started working with Nancy. Wasn't COVID a great time to just do workouts? Oh, it really was. It was. And honestly, can I also give a shout out to a casting director who she has put together a library
00:30:41
Speaker
I think you folks might know about it.
Invaluable Insights from Casting Directors
00:30:43
Speaker
Tina Maresco's library. And she also offers private coaching, which I've done with her as well, which is really nice because she can tell you which, you know, if you've auditioned for her, I certainly wouldn't choose her
00:31:01
Speaker
do a private coaching session with her if you've never had a Sound and Fury audition in front of you. It would be a little strange. But she has the private coaching, she can tell you, oh, here you were in the short file, the short list, and you weren't. But here's the one who booked the job, and you can listen to their delivery, and then she'll listen to your delivery, and then you work on the copy again.
00:31:28
Speaker
or she'll give you a new copy and you're getting that live from casting one-on-one time. To me, that was so insightful because I realized how often I was trying to change my voice to make myself sound younger and it loses all its authenticity when you do that.
00:31:51
Speaker
It's almost like we all know better. We know when we do it. But we're just trying to think, ooh, how do I book that job? But having someone who's on the casting side kind of coach you through those little nuances in terms of really being grounded. And she has that online library, which is all, you can work at it at your own pace. Or you can do, and that's kind of a different kind of set of coaching. But I find super helpful because that's her every day.
00:32:19
Speaker
She knows what's booking, she knows what's not. And I think that's, to me, that was really helpful. That's important to find out about your coach. I mean, are they paying attention? Or are they still trying to teach you something that is so 10 years ago? Or just irrelevant to whatever it is you want to pursue. Yeah. Sure.
Trial Sessions and Personal Connection
00:32:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, coaching, it's an important relationship, right? So there's a lot of trust involved.
00:32:48
Speaker
you gotta have a certain level of personal connection to really fully benefit from it.
00:32:52
Speaker
So, I mean, if possible, I would say you do a trial session, you know, certainly don't like find a coach and go, Oh, I'm going to buy your package of six lessons when you've never worked with them before, because maybe you're not a good fit. And then you're stuck with, you know, five more sessions with somebody that you just don't like. Yeah, it could happen. So do one, find a coach you think you might be interested in and do one and see if you're a good fit. One should be enough to get an idea.
00:33:22
Speaker
Cause in an hour you're going to find out if you don't like them, right? You might not find out if they're the perfect fit, but you're going to find out if they're not. Yeah. Oh yeah. Fully agree. We've all had that coach.
00:33:37
Speaker
Research. Have to do your research. I mean, seriously, that's it for me. And I'm a wimp today. I've got water in the booth. I've got auditions I need to get to when we're done here, so I'm hydrating. Boo. I say figure out what you want and find the right coach. Just do, there's plenty of resources to find coaches.
00:33:59
Speaker
I think I would say it's okay if you don't find the right coach right away. Try some on, see what fits. And it's okay to have more than one. You don't need just one coach. You could have five at the same time even.
00:34:15
Speaker
You know, a lot of what they tell you is going to be similar. A lot is going to be different. Some of it might be conflicting, but you take everybody's viewpoint and you figure out what works for you and you make your thing go. And in terms of red flags, anybody who's promising that you're going to succeed, no, run away. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It is. You know, so just do your research, get recommendations from other people. If you can get references from the coach that you're looking at,
00:34:42
Speaker
Who's worked with them? Who's had success that you can go talk to? That'd be good. Even better. And if they're not willing to share that, that's probably another red flag. This is crazy.
Final Thoughts on Research and Coach Selection
00:34:53
Speaker
This has been a serious podcast. So not normal for us. But I think you finished a beer. Did you not, Al? Well, we are in the bar. We are at the bar, I know. And I'm over here like, you know.
00:35:10
Speaker
And I saw like the end. You arrived, though, and it wasn't full. So you've already had a little bit before we start. You got to tune up to these things. Oh, very. All right. Well, there you go, folks. We're not always silly. Sometimes we can be serious when the topic requires it. Indeed. Yeah. Do your research. Find you a good coach. Hope you learned something. And see you next week.