...contributed by Bob Ancheta, owner of
InternetJock.com
Internetjock has been in operation since 1999. We
started the idea of sending voice Tracks to radio stations that were automated,
and eventually discovered there was a whole new world waiting for new exciting
voices delivered in a timely manner and at a much smaller cost. Since Congress
deregulated radio this put many announcers out on the street wondering what
their future would be. Many discovered that they could make a living from their
computer recording commercials and voice-overs and sending over the Internet in
a matter of minutes to clients. We began to recruit and train announcers willing
to work for a lower rate than they were used to. We knew that the price of
voice-overs would drop dramatically because of competition and the Internet with
high-speed delivery. Many were skeptical because they made much more money, but
the smart ones realized that the business has changed and if they wanted to
survive they had to change their way of thinking.
Internetjock has over fifty people with demos on our web
page. Demos include straight commercial reads, character voices, other
languages, kids, narration and concert demos.
We try to keep our list of demos to around fifty because
clients wanted variety, but not hundreds of voices to plow through. We add new
voices when we find somebody who sticks out of the crowd of people we already
have. They must be experienced and have access to a computer to record and send
back to us within 12 hours or less.
The issues Internetjock has encountered over the years
are the usual problems like, copy too long, wanting a spot in thirty minutes,
pronunciations not clear, and announcer’s hurrying through the copy and making
obvious mistakes that could have been prevented. We also occasionally get the
client from hell wanting revision after revision, or changing copy. This has
never changed, so we all need to be patient and roll with the changes, it’s the
nature of the business.
As the owner and operator I work very hard to make
everybody happy. We pay our people on time and expect them to get their projects
done in a timely manner. We explain that clients pick the voices from our
website 99% of the time and if they are not getting much business they need to
update their demo. We also reluctantly part ways occasionally because it simply
was not working out for either of us.
We work very hard to get new clients, and once we have
new clients we try to educate them about how Internetjock works. We also stress
they pay their bills promptly with a credit card or check. We have been burned
in the past and we simply ask clients for a credit card before we do business
together. We have a guarantee, if the client does not like the voice-over, they
don’t have to pay for it.
Internetjock has grown 50% in 2004, and we hope to see a
similar growth rate in 2005.
Visit InternetJock at:
http://www.internetjock.com
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