Welcome to The Podcast, Ladies and Gentlemen, We're So Glad You're Here and Let's Have A Good Time! Thank You Dave, It's A Pleasure to Be Here! I think it started out as just a normal kid voice and then around the age of 16. I was ordering food at a Mexican restaurant with a couple of friends and their parents and one of the moms was like, you need to be on the radio and I had never thought about it until then and then I just leaned into it. It's the best I can do with what I got nowadays.
So were you in radio for a period of time then Chris? Yes FM Radio did four years in that interesting industry from 2013 to about 2017. Awesome! And now your voice over talent, you're working with authors and I've heard you on Audible and on your website you have links to everything which is great. But tell us a little bit how did it get started for you then to go from radio to audio narration?
It everything I just kind of fell into. I left the radio business because it wasn't keeping the lights on and radio seems like such a tough thing in 2024 with the advent of streaming and the internet and I'm sure you know all about that. The times are a change in and I didn't want to I mean I got this microphone I got this computer I didn't want to just give that up and put it in the closet.
I wanted to still do this because not to to any horns here or anything but I go to the bank I go to the grocery store I can't go a week without somebody bringing it up.
You should try you should you should do cartoons you should do books and I'm just like okay where do I begin so one of these days I'm working my day job and my now wife finds a we get a course catalog in the mail from the local community college and they said here's a class intro to voice over and I'm like well we should we should look into this is kind of a goof and I took the class and they kind of vet you they.
You know decide whether or not you'd be a good fit how do you sound how how well do you read out loud which is a thing people can be really insecure about reading out loud and do you have a noticeable accent do you have any kind of impediment they weed all of those things out and then they decide well maybe you should actually look into this as a living and so from there you get a little bit of casual coaching.
You look into the resources to practice to get work what kind of equipment you might need and it just kind of all snowballs from there as somebody that does voice over as much as you do is a lot of podcasters that I talk to you do this on the weekends as a hobby they don't do this as much as you do is there any kind of the tricks or things or things we can do to keep a healthy voice we got to protect this this tool that we have this is this is your life.
You got to do something to protect that those beautiful voice of yours is there anything that you do to stay healthy with your vocal cords and all that. Number one for me don't smoke. Sometimes that actually helps people like did you develop a nice little rasp I don't know how long that's going to last I don't want to put my personal views out there or anything but I haven't smoked today in my life and I try to protect the instrument as. Potentials is that sounds number two don't over do it.
If you're part of a union I think sag after don't quote me on this because I'm not in that union but they protect their talent by saying you cannot record for more than four hours at a time because it really does get exhausting.
I used to have a four hour radio show and sometimes by the end of it if it really got animated you're like it's time for the time for the big cup of tea with the with the lemon and the honey which really does work by the way folks grandma was right so it's really just about resting not over doing it. Not a lot of screaming outside of work hours if that's something you have to do and yeah just kind of being mindful of it because there are muscles in your throat and you don't want to strain them.
So people take that for granted and don't think about it so do we actually lose our voice or are we damaging our voice in that moment where we get all raspy from screaming at a concert. It's a little bit I mean it's kind of one in the same okay yeah you're putting strain on those muscles yeah I'm not not a doctor I mean I'm all look at this casually but.
And then they need to rest and recuperate just like after you lifted weights at the gym so it's crazy singers go on periods of vocal rest little mini vows of silence and that's the body hopefully heals. There you go it's great see that's something I was always curious about now the other thing is you help authors by voicing their books what this is fascinating to me because I don't understand how any of this works. You get a book through through an author to read for someone.
Do you read the entire book at first like the whole thing through are you reading it live in the moment and you don't know the next word is going to be like how do you prep like what happens behind the scenes. That really falls down to personal preference what I've heard from other people in the industry is it's very much encouraged to read the entire book first to get a sense and a feel of how many characters there are what these characters are all about.
And so now the busier you get the harder that is to do because reading takes up precious valuable time I have a lot of fun doing it in the moment I don't like to know what comes next I find it kind of helps things to sound almost a little more organic if I found out 30 seconds ago this guy died or this character is the relative of that character.
It's just fun for me to do it that way and it can cost problems and pitfalls so that's the magic of being able to record and go back and edit but I have fun just living in the moment with the audio books. Okay and do you do all your own editing yourself for you doing this in studio. It's all me this is a one man show editing takes in my opinion twice as much time maybe sometimes three times as much time as actually voicing the different chapters in the different projects because.
Microphones are an amazing tool but they're very sensitive and so are listeners and it's not always awesome to have the gross little saliva noises and breaths and this that in the other or you know God forbid you're mispronounced a word or at the name of a city or a country Google is your best friend and so are the authors if you have any questions but editing is so time consuming.
And it's very tedious but now I do it all on my own for now at least well yeah because I'm on your website and you have a list of all your tools and you're editing software you see audacity which is when I'm using as well that's awesome to see all the best yeah it's great I'm recording in it right now it's great.
It's I love how you're never think linked out here for us so you know exactly we're using talk us to your website as well Chris like take us there and what can we find when we get there I love the samples on your on your website it's great. Absolutely yeah my website www.cristeric.com TORIC is a weird last name spelled T-U-R-E-K that's my business website for Chris TORIC voiceover got some demos here at the top underneath a lovely logo like to thank the fine folks at 99 designs. Thank you.
For designing that for me. Thanks. Yeah I've got my commercial demo narration demo and a little local radio commercial for station I used to work at in western Idaho that I'm still in touch with for a local business. Underneath that so the websites a constant work in progress as those of you who have designed websites probably know you're always changing things moving and shaking I've got to add a couple more links actually after we're done recording here to do.
I got a little tiny breakdown of kind of the software and hardware that I use some fun logos a bio biography and then some of the past works I've worked on them a lot of audio books that are available on audible iTunes and Amazon and some author testimonials very grateful to have people share such kind words and sentiments with me and then finally.
A little kind of text box to get a hold of me which just routes directly into my business email if anybody has any questions concerns compliments insults or you know like to work together that would be ideal awesome. So when you're when you're voicing an audiobook you talked about multiple characters then you're doing all of the characters that are represented in the book every single one of them and that presents a lot of challenges and in the
coaching and the workshops that I've taken people say that when you get into voice acting the keyword is acting and you should definitely brush up on it take classes take courses get training because that's the hard part reading which you know we're taught from early childhood that kind of falls into the secondary category if
you're acting is is lame which I feel like it can be sometimes then not hardly anyone people are going to want to listen to you or hire you so yeah acted out and you're doing yeah so a book that I most recently worked on had about I'm going to say a ballpark of 20 different characters and they were diverse we're talking people from different countries people of different ages people of different genders gods mythical beings so you just have to
kind of map it out it helps to have a diagram draw it out say this person is like this whatever a little cheat sheet because this is an audio business no one's going to be able to see cheating and always if the author is a communicative ask them hey what do you think about this for this character what do you think
about that for that character and then hopefully that provide you with some feedback some guidance and in my opinion if they don't well then no news is good news and hopefully they like what you're doing have you ever heard back from an author and they're like wow that voice was exactly what I was looking for or the opposite they're like I didn't even anticipate that but I love it I love the voice so far I've had I've had a very lucky track record with authors no one has said that
that sucks redo it so thank goodness for that now they've said why never I never have envisioned that person sounding that way so that's a great need direction you've taken it in and I've had others say you know that is exactly what my minds I'm going to say minds ear I don't know if that anyone's ever said that that's exactly what I had in my minds ear so thank you for that yeah and I love it when they're nice I love it when they're
communicative and we can get stuff done it's it's just every every day is different from the last are you accepting new clients right now Chris can like somebody always okay always accepting new clients I'm never too busy to work with anybody okay so if you if you need something let me know I'm happy to be here do you do smaller projects or are
you only looking focused on like audiobooks like big projects like I'm just trying to get a context of what you're available to do at the you know not to sound desperate or anything but I accept projects of any length I've done an audio book that lasted an hour I've done that go up I've done some
that are 10 hours it doesn't matter to me I love doing it and I will make time and pour the love into any project of any likes and not just books everything everything under the sun you need somebody with a microphone for good because we talked before we record that for my how to
podcast series family I have podcasters reaching out to me constantly going Dave I'm trying to find a voice over talent to do an intro and an outro for my podcast I'm willing to spend money on this I want to sound great but I'm having a hard time finding people and when I do find
someone it's not to my expectations and I'm just looking for somebody quality because again I want a relationship with this talent into the future not just a one and done I want to be able to go back and say hey I've got a special or a season or something and I'd love to get an update to my intro outro and have a relationship with this person not just hiring somebody on a website and you may never hear from them again I want to I want to build a
relationship with people that I work with so you're open to that as well for the how to podcast community as well by all means get on that website shoot me a message we can discuss anything you might want I'm actually I'm working on social media today I'm just transforming transforming things into a business page I've got personal social media but I need business social media and I've really been drag my feet because I'm a social media is
exhausted so building a new one from the ground up I've just been procrastinating on but that'll be another outlet to get a hold of me and it's another outlet to get a hold of other voice actors as well you can go down the Instagram rabbit hole and find all kinds of people on there there are specialized websites for voice talent but this is where it starts to get really
exhausting places like voices dot com or voice 123 dot com you can sort through a buffet of people and have them all audition for your project you might get two to 300 of them Wow that is where the client starts to get their head spins yeah I mean they start to sound all like when you hear 200 people read the same sentence or two or paragraph
back to back to back some people get so intimidated by that that they just cancel and they just I don't know if sometimes the project never gets done and man it's it's exhausting for the talent on there to try and all compete for that same worm on the hook to so it's a resource you can check those sites out but I'm a little jaded I wouldn't recommend it I like what you're describing here relationships organic face to face cultivation of just being able to say hey this guy did this
favor for me six months ago I can still contact him and have him in my pocket to do it again today if need be yeah so stuff like that so talking about building relationships in community through social media all that that's a lot of work
we should be very record that a podcast from you as the host would be I would be I would be so captivated by what you would put out into the world because of again not knowing how to do what you do and you're an expert in the room you have connections you have story of history I would love to follow with a podcast that you would put out in the world
again bringing other voices on in the in the community building relationships bringing authors on talking about how to turn this into a business for somebody right you've gone to school for this like you there's there's you have a lot offer
that a lot of people maybe they're young they're in school they don't know what their path in life and hearing your show would give them direction and just learning from you you could be a coach you could coach people on how to do this you could bring on other voice actors that are young and
young and help them learn how to do this there's so many opportunities where you could kind of expand this using your voice in a podcast setting to bring people into your world and the beautiful thing is it's a it's like a digital resume beyond your website where I can listen to you and as I listen to episode after episode as a listener I haven't met you yet but you're in my ears and I feel a connection with you
where when it comes time to work with you you don't need to sell me on anything because I've already you've given me so much value I feel already connected to you I'm ready to purchase and move added I'm ready to hire you because you've given me so much so there's no there's no sales funnel in that moment because you've given me all this great value as a podcast host
so I was kind of challenging and asking the question of you is if a podcast was ever in your plans because again I'm super curious on how how you do what you do might seem common to you but it's extraordinary to me as a listener so I find so much value in this that I would love to hear your show so we know we chatted before we record the had a few questions around podcasting but is there anything that we can kind of just chat about here near the end of our conversation that would
kind of help give you some direction if that's the path you choose to go.
Yeah so basically the big vague question of getting started everybody knows you got to go and get your actual physical equipment I would hope that that would be just about step one right getting yourself a microphone an audio interface and a good computer is there really anything else you need I would say almost before that would be your why like why why do you want to do this because I again you already have the equipment so you're ahead of most people and you have the skills
through audacity you have you have everything you need to do this you can do this all as a team of one so you're way ahead of a curve just so you know but your why is the thing that's going to bring you back to the next episode and making the next recording knowing exactly why you're doing this and kind of like who you're doing it for that's kind of the idea like do you want to talk to fellow voice over actors great but why do you want to talk to them
do you build your community okay that's a good so we'll have guests on your show do you want to be a coach and you want to help people learn how to do what you do
and be that teacher moment you could coach people on your show now I can hire you right so there's little things like that you could be on your show you could be you can make a simple little comment like everybody this week I was working with one of my clients and I was coaching them on imposter syndrome and who's ever going to listen to me as a voice voice over actor and here's some of the things I talked about in that moment what you just told me is that you're a coach
and I can hire them work with you you didn't even have to advertise anything you just said I was working with one of my clients so now I'm right I got my credit card I'm ready to go let's go Chris I want to hire you because you just told me that you have clients you can say I do voice over intros and outros for podcasters that's a huge cap in the market and I don't hear anybody talking about this so you could go on and do all that and I don't care about you
you could go on and do all that and you can advertise your services to the podcast community just by telling people that you do it so I know people who would hire you today if they knew you were out there just like that so having a podcast creates this digital resume so that I can I can hear your voice
you're technically auditioning for me when I press play really okay right in a sense because now I'm now I'm listening to you going I can hear Chris being the voice of my show I can hear Chris being the voice of my commercial I can hear Chris being the voice of my training program for my business
you could be the voice from my cartoon character that I'm working on I hear you in my head going Chris is the voice that I've been looking for and have I had I not gone to Google and typed in your name or voice over actors or I get caught in this cycle of going through and weeding through all this information that it comes through a search where I can just press play on the podcast that's got a really good title for your show that leads me to you
yeah I it's a great way to reach an audience it is it isn't I see them and I it's about taking that leap to it's about saying I'm going to take the time to do this risks be damned and let's make it happen that's to me that's like 60% of the battle at least for me personally so how do you kind of take the leap Dave how do you just decide one day you're going to do it
throw caution to the wind and again if you know your why you know why you're doing this so that'll help you to know who you're talking to because you have a picture in your mind of the person you're talking to is it directed to voice over actors is it directed to people who hire voice over actors or both right so that's kind of really clear once you know who you're talking
to and why you're talking to them now it's just a matter of mapping out what you want to say you could have a 5 10 15 minute episode it doesn't have to be 45 minutes or three hours like Joe Rogan it can be short you can just do and you can do once a week once a month once every two months you can do whatever you want there's no rules to this and then as you have bandwidth and time in your calendar you can increase it you can decrease it works for you you're the boss of everything there's no one
looking over your shoulder going Christy got to make an episode as you do this you're going to get it's going to help with your social media because now people can you can tell people find me on Instagram here's my handle come to my website you can be your own commercial
so you advertise your services on your podcast you give value you talk about the audio industry you talk about radio you talk about all the things you learned in school translate that through your lens and your knowledge back to your audience you have so much content today and you haven't even really started you you could fill up a whole year would probably very little effort with all the things you know and have done so you have everything you need to do this
and then would it be safe to say especially when first starting out I would hope you feel this way 10 years from now to but do it for the love of the game right do it because it's something you know new to try or something that you enjoy and hopefully you're having fun doing it don't do it
to you know try to become an overnight sensation or to become a millionaire but you know do it for fun would you say that that's accurate or yeah yeah so I was mentioning to you before we have record that through my how to podcast series I'm in helping people start shows so I got this email yesterday this is what I'm talking about this is what you can do Chris okay her name is Monica she just created a new podcast
and she was listening to my show learned how to do this and created her own podcast set me a link to it so I can listen to it and I gave her feedback right just encourage her to continue doing it she didn't a great job
her email I did a little mini episode of her show to spotlight her to my community and put it out there as a bonus episode just hey everybody here's Monica's new show everyone go listen go support Monica she launches her podcast I'd love to do that for you as well her last statement in her email says thank you for everything you
literally helped change my life that's profound right Dave I mean such a small gesture but leads to such big results so that's amazing now you can have that same impact for your community you'll be the one receiving that email Chris that's like Chris I didn't think I could do this and now I just got my first my first book for audible I can't believe it if it wasn't for you
I would never be here so thank you you'll be the one receiving those emails I'd be printing every single one and right me hanging them on the wall if it were up to me but so if I was in your secrets and I'm not because you have this amazing voice that I'm really jealous of if I was in your seat and I was going to focus my attention on social media
today or building a podcast I would build a podcast because social media is very transactional it's like talking to a parade you go to like to the Santa Claus parade or a fall parade and these people are going by your stationery and the parades moving by you you're kind of talking to a passing
audience on social media and only a small percentage of your audience is actually going to see what you post compare that to being a voice over actor having a podcast and knowing that there's someone press play on your podcast and they live in Africa they live in
India they're in Poland these are all actual people I've spoken to because of my podcast and putting my voice out there there's no boundaries there's no borders people can listen to it anytime they want it's on demand people can listen to an episode I recorded four years ago
and press play today and get value out of it so your your you know all about having audio legacy and using your voice to build a business it seems very natural to me as a casual observer of what you do that you could easily transition into a podcast space
and let it serve you as it again a digital resume that highlights what you do you simply talking on the mic again is a vocal addition for me that makes me want to pick you because you're going to stand out in a sea of those 200 people on all those other sites where I'm going to get flooded
and indicted by all these different voice actors I have your show which will become my favorite show which I will listen to every single episode of and be a fan of and follow and support you to the point that when I am ready to hire someone I don't need to go find anybody I already found you
because I've already feel connected to you and that's a different connection than you're going to get on social media I would say social media is a great way to to combine that with the podcast or combine that with your website
but I wouldn't put all of my focus on just one thing social media but let it balance out all the other things you're doing including using your voice on a podcast Well you know I hope one day you'll be a guest on mine and you know I hope we can grow it into a big beautiful thing
I liked your analogy about social media being a parade and it's like a parade where everybody in the parade is marching in a different direction Yeah I'm going to sound like a cranky old guy I hope it's a passing fad one day and it might be cool to you know to go back outside
let's not get on that tangent but yeah this is just I mean before today I've considered podcasting but never seriously so I appreciate you kind of nudging me to take that risk and maybe go in that direction so that's very very interesting to think about yeah and even in the early stages of this is to be a guest to be a guest on podcasts to come on and talk again you could go on how you can go on a podcast of a podcasting
and just talk about voice overacting and the intro's and outro's there again there's a huge gap in the market where people are searching for you and they don't know how to find you so you just being a guest on shows to talk about voice acting in the podcasting space as an expert on voice acting
you can help podcasters who have very little knowledge we haven't gone to school for this you're at a different level than we are so you're the expert in the room I'm here to learn from you as a guest on my show so using pod match we talked about that's one website you can try
you can sign up there on pod match and put yourself out there get on shows and then build your community as a guest as you're contemplating starting your own show just get get used to being a guest you're doing it right now so yeah this is my first one okay cool on first ever see right so that's another that's another way to dip your foot in the pool and get used to being a guest and doing that building up your credibility building up your voice people get to know you
and they're like hang on everyone so I want you to know Chris the moment somebody emails me and says Dave I'm looking for a voice over artist to be whatever for me you're the first one I'm going to be sending people to you okay so you've already got that in place just by this connection alone
and I do represent a large group of people that are looking for you so I can fill up your calendar with some really amazing people would love to work with you so I'm just saying you you have a great opportunity in front of you so I just want to encourage you to keep moving forward
do it at your own pace what feels comfortable to you but if I can be a resource for you in the future I would love to be there in your back corner in your back pocket to you know if you have a question let me know I'd love to help you I'm touched thank you I'm beyond grateful and I mean just even even just meeting you to begin with kind of was sheer happenstance so that's maybe one percent of the equation so I mean I'm just I'm so grateful Dave I can't express that enough
and I'm going to before I start rambling I'm just going to cap it off there so okay one of the things I'm doing on my how to podcast series is I have a question of the month that I posed to my audience and they respond back to me I have a thing on my website called speak pipe where people can leave me a voice message for free they click a button they can record their message and it comes to me in an email I can download the message or I can listen to it
I can also respond with my voice back to them we can have a conversation and speak pipe dot com is the website so on my website I ask people to answer the question of the month and when they do the answer they give me give me the name of your website
the name of your podcast whatever you do for you would be your voice over acting and your website name had a contact you so kind of introduce yourself introduce your website and then answer the question of the month those are the three components to this so the first two you got down pat no problem so I'm going to ask you to redo this for me and I'm going to take this little clip I'm going to do I'm going to take it to another spot and release it so it'll be your name your website
and then the answer to the question of the month which simply is how many podcast episodes do you listen to on average on a typical week that's it so for me it would be hi this is Dave from the how to podcast series and I listened to about three episodes a week that's it that's it little simple right and then so people can connect with it's a way to advertise you it's not really about the question or your answer it's more about you and your website that's why I'm asking the question
I want people to connect with you so I love to kind of the end as we wrap up if you can record this for us here in the moment it'll be again your name your name your website and then you answer the question how many podcast episodes do you listen to per week you ready to go okay I am ready to go okay lights camera action and Chris you're on
hey this is Chris Turic voice actor check out my website www.Chris Turic dot com and I listen to eight or nine podcast episodes a week see everyone did you hear that higher Chris today is website when all the information will be in the show notes
before we go Chris one last comment to the authors out there who are looking for a voice over actor they've met you now so that's going to bring them into your world which is great is there any tips that you're expecting from an author when they reach out to you
that'll make this relationship really solid and a great working relationship what are you looking for from an author when they reach out to you for the first time oh my goodness I would say really for me the more info the better do not worry about pouring too much into an email
or a message write me a book in the email I mean do whatever you got to do but I I like to know what your book called along as it been out how many approximately hours do you think it will take to do you know just just give me info because I've had I
like like being on a dating site people just they email you they go hi my name's John or whatever I have a book by you know you're like well I don't know I got a pull teeth so yeah just don't be afraid to really go detailed the more the better I like that I love it okay everyone all the information for Chris will be in the show notes as always and we're going to release this episode over on the
How to podcast series we're going to release this on living the next chapter and share this with everyone and yeah if you have any questions around using audacity I'm sure Chris can answer those questions as well because he does this all the time after looking for a great voice over actor for all of your projects Chris is there
for you please reach out to him and let him know you heard him you're on the podcast Chris again thank you so much for this I hope we can talk many more times in the future David thank you very much and I guarantee it excellent everybody all information is always in the show notes again thanks Chris thank you hey thanks for being here at the end of the podcast this is just for you because you're still here thank you for your support for the podcast thank you for
listening to the show sharing it with other podcasters maybe somebody you know is thinking what's starting a show I would love for you to say hey wait she will check out the how to podcast series it's got everything you need and Dave as well is included you get one free Dave
with the how to podcast series I'm included with it so kind of a bundle thing you get to that point mentioning it in the podcast definitely want to remind you here at the end there's a link in the show notes starting at this summer I'm working through this
it's a way for us you and I to have a conversation around podcasting I want to help you and I've been doing this for people who listen to the show now for almost three years and I just haven't been promoting it as a thing so I'm now promoting it as a
thing I want to spend time with you I kind of would love to hear your voice we're going to jump on zoom together we're going to talk with your podcast you get time one-on-one with me 30 minutes of my calendar believe me free no strings attached you don't have to buy a
blender or a vacuum or no that's enough no no just us I just like to help you and whether you're thinking about starting a show or you have a show you want to grow your show whatever it is I'd love to meet you talk about your struggles your
questions work together and I am eventually developing this into more of a coaching program for our podcasters but I'm starting with my best friends first for free so if you're interested you listen to the show and I appreciate you link in the show notes let's get together and talk podcasting okay you and me let's talk let's talk soon see you thanks