Hey there!
Here’s something you can steal from the world of product development. After all, you’re constantly developing your product…which is you!
They have a model called the MVP. It’s not the sports MVP (Most Valuable Player), it’s something entirely different.
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Hope this helps!
David
All Episodes
Five Ways To Have An Excellent Coffee Date With Me
Five Ways To Have A Crappy Coffee Date With Me
Taking Advantage Of The Wisdom Of The Tribe
How To Be A World Class Complainer
The False Nobility Of The Struggle
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The Perils of Live Performance And Why Jeremy Kappell Should Not Have Been Fired
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The Problem In Every Commercial Script
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Voice Over Is REALLY Hard. Until It Isn’t.
Helping Make Resolutions Stick
ACX Jobs: They’re ALL SAG-AFTRA-Friendly
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Who Says You Need To “Feel Like It?”
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The Lost Keys And The Microphone In My Elevator
My Insane Backup System Plus Two Helpful Tips
What Open Loops Are And Why They Work So Well
Two More Things For Which You Can Use Open Loops
Three Things Not To Say Or Do…When Trying To Learn Something New
Front Burner and Back Burner Project Management
How To Properly List The Accents and Dialects You Perform
My SAG-AFTRA Presentation On VO Demos (Part 1)
My SAG-AFTRA Presentation On VO Demos (Part 2)
A Simple, One-Word Decision-Making Question To Ask Yourself
How You Can Use The MVP Model As A Performer
The Robocall Equivalent Of Unsubscribe
Making Your Links Irresistible
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The Threat That Made Me Create a New Page For LAME
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How New Media Is Using The Oldest Ad Model Ever
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Motivation: Your Three Big Needs In A Cool Little Package
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The Prodigy Game Doesn’t Deserve This Treatment
What Fair Markets Are, And Why Voices.com Isn’t One
Trevor’s Three A’s From Apple On Killing Customers With Kindness
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73 Videos In, My First Hater Appears
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The Crazy Backward Way IKEA Prices Their Stuff
Voices.com Complained To YouTube That I Violated Their Privacy
For Your Health: Not Perfect. Just Better.
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AMA (Ask Me Anything): Here Are The Answers (Part 1)
AMA (Ask Me Anything): Here Are The Answers (Part 2)
AMA (Ask Me Anything): Here Are The Answers (Part 3)
AMA (Ask Me Anything): Here Are The Answers (Part 4)
AMA Answers Part 5 Plus A Medical Warning
Last AMA Answers (#6): Gear, Services and Success
A 7-Word Reminder: “Don’t correct people when it matters little.”
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You are speaking my love language! I preach this daily at my day gig in the IT shop of a large healthcare corporation. I’ll climb up on my Agile methodology soapbox with anyone. Don’t let perfection stand in the way of progress. It’s a great lesson for voice over as well.
Mornin’ David,
This MVP thing is certainly a Most Valuable Point! and at some point-in-time, an Artist, Craftsperson, and/or VO person has to put it (the product) out there for Sale. A difficult moment maybe but a moment of resistance that has to be faced & overcome in order to be able to move forward. Fear & self-doubt are insidious feelings that can hold-back anyone, sometimes for a lifetime.
I’ve been there before, and curiously I’m there again as I write this while preparing to take a Step, one small step, into a new arena that could, might, possibly open a new productive direction for me. Exposing your Art rarely generates the negative resistance you imagine especially when built upon a foundation of preparedness/skill. After all, bringing out your VO MVP is not the beginning but the continuation of your VO journey. ~Thanx for this reminder David.
Sounds like a perfect subject for the Believe Journey.
Thanks, David! I have been presenting my MVP without even knowing it! I agree completely, especially regarding business cards, websites, etc. Even my newish Meetup group is an MVP. They all will get better over time, but at least they are presentable and putting me out there…isn’t that what it is all about?
Perfection stifles. There’s no doubt about it. Just let ‘er rip, then do it again, better next time and every time after that.
That is how I pulled off recording 50 episodes of my TV show, “Yoga Time with Marlon Braccia” in 18 months. By episode 35, I had it down. I’d ask the crew for 1 min of between the bedlam of getting the set ready and beginning to tape so I could breath.Then the countdown would come, “5,4,3, ____, ____.” At zero, I’d look straight at the camera and talk to it as if I were taking to someone I knew. There was no performing. I was just me, the yoga teacher who knew this stuff thru and thru, who was driven by her desire to make yoga accessible to everyone who was willing to try it. Eventually, it was available on 11 million TV sets a week, because I mailed huge 3/4″ tapes all over the country at my own expense. I’d be up at midnight printing shipping labels and keeping track of what station had which episodes. I’d put them in my suitcase when I went to NY and beg security not to X-ray my suitcase.
At first it was was faaaar from perfect. Sometimes I had a bad director. One time I forgot my make-up and looked like a ghost on camera. Sometimes they messed up the soundtrack, so I made it dummy-proof by putting start-to-finish on a CD. Every time I shot, I had to beg someone to come over to help me put my oriental rug into my hatchback, because I just couldn’t lift it myself and it was a major part of the set. I had to think of 50 themes for the 50 episodes, so I learned a lot about tailoring a practice to this ailment or that. I met great cameramen and utterly lazy ones. I learned what did and did not work in hand-held camera work. I trained the crew to follow my moves and listen to content, to know where the CUs should be. I learned how to move when I had a lav mic on, so the sound wouldn’t spike. I painfully reviewed my tapes until I taught myself how to let go of all my nervous, on-camera habits. Eventually I was alert yet relaxed on every show.
Seven years after production ended, I got a distribution deal and sold it in DVD format thru Was-Mart and other big box stores. I’m proud to stay over 1.6 million people have done yoga with me thru the DVDs and streaming. Who knows how many on TV.
I tell you all this so you are encouraged to WING IT the first time and get whatever your “it” is out there. Just get moving on it. Get out of idea stage.
Ask David. After his audiobook course, I was scared out of my mind to take on an audiobook. I knew he taught me all the tools, I just didn’t know if I could pull off a whole book. The only thing that pushed me into a very, very hot closet to produce that month with no AC, was the fear of not earning the $100 PFH, that I desperately needed to pay rent the following month.
One day at a VO event, David publicly congratulated me, pointing to me and saying that I wasn’t scared. I shot back across the crowd, “I was petrified, but I did it anyway.” There’s a book title that says it all: “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”
Amazing Marlon! One of these days I too will be able to be more than Gable!
I worked as a PM for a retailer on an international site launch on the commercial side and the concept of MVP in the product world blew my mind at the time. I never made the connection to my own practice – so thanks for that!!