Tagging demos anonymously? Stop this now

Lee Gordon · **Voice Talent** Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 1549

Here's the logic. We, the voice talents, are here in search of business. The revenue from the transactions flows from the seekers to us. Therefore, we are the ones paying for the exposure to the seekers.

Voice123, in order to attract the greatest number of seekers (to give us talents the greatest opportunity to obtain jobs), needs to make it as easy as possible for seekers to post their jobs here. Charging them money is not the way to accomplish that.

The net result is we get the bottom feeders mixed in with the desirable clients. And they get the half-assed talent mixed in with the professionals.

September Day Leach · **Voice Talent** Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Posts: 1526

Diane Havens · **Voice Talent** Joined: 09 Jun 2006 Posts: 1281

You know, I thought the same thing!!!

Seriously, that's very sweet, Ember, thank you -- but no, there are not many leads for me -- middle age is 35 to most of these people. I didn't ever answer leads that listed "young adult OR middle age" -- that's a sure sign they really want young. Or they close before they get to me with the plethora of great gals in my group.

In all actuality, I got very little that suited me here this year, sorry to say. Or that interested me. For content or rate. Consequently I didn't audition much. I did get a couple of gigs this year, with decent pay, and happy clients -- so I hope I'll get repeats from them. But mostly no ratings, and unopeneds, -- in fact, every one of the jobs I got here were from private leads, or unrateds -- every time I'd get a five, I'd get a 2 to counter it, it seemed, and since I so rarely auditioned, it was bad for my grade point average. I'm afraid I'm not graduating cum laude.

I was not alone in that boat. (Testimonials available.)

My voice is great for the niche I have identified for myself, through the types of work I have booked over the past three years, and the type of work that I most enjoy -- so I am pursuing those avenues now that I have tested the on-line waters. I have sufficient projects to keep me occupied for the present while I tweak my marketing plan.

I will keep an eye out here, however, and see what develops, and of course, that won't stop me from posting!

I will miss comiserating over the next new development at 123, though, I must admit, so I will have to feel the pain (and the thrills of triumph here as well) vicariously through you guys for a while.

David Oxford · **Voice Talent** Joined: 09 Feb 2007 Posts: 505

I think one of the misconceptions going on here in this entire thread, at least regarding the viability of these online casting sites, is that there's an assumption that because a group of persons who might be regarded as "pros" should automatically get the work and those who might be regarded as, well, "less than pro" should rarely get work.....but the big variable here that really throws a kink in the mechanism of this scenario, at least in my view, has to do with whether the seeker is willing to wade through all the auditions to make a determination about which one(s) fit the bill for their project(s)....i.e., which ones are "pro" vs. otherwise.

So then, does this represent a clue as to the percentage of premium members here would be classified as "pros" vs. those who would not? Or does it merely represent the luck of the draw regarding how many of the "pros" get to audition for any particular lead vs. the "non-pros?" (since V123 has a cap on the number of auditions per lead.) Voices-com doesn't have such a cap - so how many auditions do you suppose a seeker gets over there? If they get 500, 600, 800 auditions, are they willing to filter through all that to find the gems and narrow the field from there?

Food for thought.
David