SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, our next board members' journey into voiceover didn't actually begin in a voiceover booth. It began with another business. Before building a successful VO career, Terry Briscoe spent years running businesses, solving problems, making tough calls, and learning firsthand what it takes to build something from the ground up. Those experiences gave him a certain perspective on marketing, on relationships, and on business ownership that a lot of voice actors don't develop until much later in their careers. We'll also talk about another important part of Terry's story today, and that's having a successful VO career while living with MS, multiple sclerosis. His experience offers valuable insight into grit and resilience and persistence and building a voiceover business that can support you through some ups and downs that most folks don't have to deal with. Please join me in welcoming our next board member and a dear friend, Terry Briscoe. How are you, buddy? Not too bad, boy. How are you doing, man? I'm to be here, man. Honored to be here. I'm honored to have you because uh we've been friends for I guess what, four or five years now, maybe? It's been five years. Has it been?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yeah, it's been like we weren't you're one of one of the first people I've met at a voiceover gathering. Like, I'm so sorry. I know, right? I was like, who's this guy?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

I wanted to have you on for a number of reasons. One, I think you've got a unique perspective because it's very rare that I meet a voice actor uh that has been an entrepreneur before starting voice acting. Tell us about that, and then maybe a little bit about how it informs what you do as a voice actor and influences how you run your business.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Well, um, some of your listeners may know, and probably most of them do not know. Um, I came into voice acting from a transportation business. Now, didn't run like I didn't have like, you know, 16 employees or anything. It was basically like voiceover. It was just me. So I was a solopreneur. Uh I did non-emergency medical transportation for 12 years. Actually, just shuttered my company this year, uh, going into May after 12 years to go full-time into voiceover. Um, so the perspective on that is, you know, I was my own boss for 12 years, you know, and that perspective alone understanding that you've got to be, you're the the buck stops here, right? Like that's literally the biggest lesson that you'll ever learn when you start going into work for in the working for yourself. The buck stops here. You got nobody to blame, you got nobody to hold your hand, tell you what to do. You've got to be the financial manager, you gotta be the marketer, you know, you've got to be the person driving everyone every day. You know, sick days, there are none. You get up and you put a mask on, right? And then I was putting on masks to drive people way before COVID, just to make sure that everybody got where they were going. I would tell you it was very fulfilling work though, because doing non-emergency medical transportation, most of my clients were people who got injured on the job. Okay. So I took people for seven years sometimes who had massive concussions and couldn't go outside in the daytime. And, you know, they had to like have sh big shades of blue blocker shades, right? And they were going to get um um Botox injections in their head for concussions that they had.

unknown 3:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Right. And some people I just took for a few weeks. But it was very it was very rewarding to do that job for so long because I got to see people, I got to help people get well. You know, I was driving these people who couldn't drive themselves to their appointments, and how else were they gonna get there? I mean, I took some people from the DC area to Philadelphia to go to the VA in Philadelphia. You know, I waited for people to have surgery overnight at hospitals. So just it's uh that was it was rewarding work and it taught me the hustle, number one. I mean, I always had the hustle, you know. I'm a former military man, is all I know. So, you know, the hustle was there from 18 on. But when you're done when you're hustling for yourself, it's completely different animal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

What uh I'm interested in this because you know, a lot of people in in voiceover they fall in love with the craft first, but you didn't get into voiceover first, you got into m non-emergency medical transportation. Where did that light bulb come from and what pushed you to go, I'm gonna start a business doing this?

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Oh, so well, actually that light bulb was forced upon me. Uh that's where the MS comes in and play. I was formerly a truck driver and a transit bus driver. And in my county, that's actually a really good job because it's a government job. So, you know, if it were if it weren't for me getting sick and discovering that I have MS, which is kind of dangerous to, you know, drive a gigantic vehicle going down the road with 30 to 40 people stay behind you, you know. So I had to give that up. And um, when I gave that up, I had a good friend who was also a bus driver, and he had um group homes for seniors. And one of the services that he offered to the seniors was taking the was doing the non-emergency medical transportation.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Right. And when I got sick and he watched the whole thing, because I at first I didn't know what was going on. I just went downhill pretty quickly. And uh, you know, I was taking shots at work and stuff. It was kind of crazy. And I'm still working like 14-hour days, right? So he was like, he saw me going down, he was like, pull me inside, like, brother, I got something that I had already put in for retirement because they forced, I had to, they didn't force me out, but medical, medically, I had to go. Um, so he put my time in already. He pulled me inside, he was like, brother, I got you. Like, there's this business that I can teach you how to do. And thank, like, thank God for him. Uh Keith, Keith Jenkins, that's my man, forever. Um, and he put me onto it and he's like, So you can call the shots here, you make a good amount of money. Um, you don't have to go if you're not feeling well. You know, you can do this yourself with just your own vehicle. You just got to get it registered and, you know, get all the certifications and establish the business. Starting out is a bit of a pain in the butt, but once you're there, it's, you know, pretty, pretty, pretty easy. So going from that into voiceover was a completely different animal. Um, voiceover is something that I always wanted to do, like my entire life, literally. I've always done things with my voice. I've never act before. I didn't act at all before I started training for voiceover. I'll say that. Well, thank you. Thank you. I'm trying, man. I try well, you know, when I when I dedicate myself to something, I dedicate myself to something. It's one of the reasons you're here. Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, so I dove I dove in head first, man. And ironically, the first thing that I booked was not a voiceover job, but it was actually a local movie. So having never been never had anything.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Excuse me. Overshot the landing by just a touch, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

I mean, hey, man, I I right place, right time, ready to go. That's what you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

You you you were an entrepreneur before the VO thing, uh and in a very specific niche, right? Non-emergency medical transportation. Are there any similarities between what you did before and what you do now in terms of how you run your day, what the challenges might be? Do you are you seeing commonalities?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

I mean, there's I think there's always going to be commonalities in small business, right? Like I say, again, like what I started out with, the buck stops here, that's gonna be any small business, like any solopreneurship. Um the one thing I didn't have to do, and the one thing that is the biggest challenge for me, is the marketing. For my non-emergency medical transportation business, I never really had to market. So that's a skill I never really had to hone until I started getting into the voiceover business. And then I was like, oh, whoa, what's that about? How do I do that? Because I was a subcontractor for larger companies on the East Coast. So there was like when I started, there were three major companies. There was two in Florida and one in Maryland, right by Towson. Go to you.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Let's go. So the guy with the Rocky Top hat on now. I know. What's going on, buddy? Get it out of here. MSD's gonna get a lot more of my money than Towson ever did. So Maryland is getting mine right now. So you were a sub for these larger, these larger bids so you had a natural.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

The whole thing is that they would put out jobs for bid. And and this is one commonality, is that you had to bid for the jobs, right? Like pay-to-plays and, you know, uh your self-marketing and all that stuff. Right. You're gonna make sure you stay within rates. Because you don't want to tell them that doing a trip to Philadelphia is $200 when a trip to Philadelphia is $500. Right. So you don't want to sell yourself short because next time they're gonna want that $200.

unknown 9:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

They're not gonna pay you what it's worth. Yep. Right. And then I've actually found this um this was a tough lesson to learn at the end of my transportation business. One of the reasons why I'm like, okay, I'm making more money in voiceover now. Why am I even paying this? I mean, I was paying like $300 a month and just in car insurance. Right. You know, that's crazy. And I mean, never hadn't been, I haven't been in an accident or even got a ticket in 22 years. Wow. And my insurance is going up every year. Like, isn't your insurance supposed to go down when you don't when you don't, when you're not a problem? Like I thought so, but apparently not in that. Um so hold up. Where was I where was I going with that? So you know making sure that the rates stayed the same. Yep. You have to I was people were undercutting because of the because of the situation financially that's going on in the country right now. People were doing people were like jobs that I was getting paid $160 to do, people were bidding $90 to do. And I just wasn't going to do that.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Now with gas being $4 a gallon, and like, no, I'm not gonna lose I'm not gonna, I'm not even making any money at this point. I'm better off staying at home and waiting for auditions to come through and doing them than I am even going out anymore. And obviously I love this more anyway. You know, blah that that business was a blessing, kept food on my table for twelve years. You know, I I love it and you know, I'll I'll always appreciate it. But, you know, this is what was in my heart.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

And so pivoting into full full-time voiceover in May of this year, any of the hairy scaries that came along with that?

SPEAKER_01 10:43

I mean, honestly, man, it's terrifying not knowing what your not knowing what your monthly salary is gonna be. I'm just being honest with you, it's terrifying. You know, um I have established some systems where for the last five for the past five years, I've got some repeat clients, some new clients. Um, I'm trying to make it work on pay-to-plays. They just don't like me on there for some reason. Right. But, you know, I'm not gonna worry about it so much. I'm gonna keep, you know, putting it out there. I'm gonna keep trying to build my relationships. Um a lot of my work comes from um recommendations now from other voice actors that I've worked with. You know, and that's a great feeling. Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

And I actually worked with that guy over there on one project. Wait, yeah, once or twice. And I'm sorry to provide one of the lowlights of your career, but that's how it goes. Somebody's got to do it. You just touched on something, though, that I when I thought of people that I wanted to have in this year's VO boardroom, made me think of you because the word community popped to mind. Uh, and you're one of and and we're look, you know this, we're in a community with a plethora of great community builders, but you're one of those, man. Um tell me about community and what it means to you within the voiceover business. Talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Well, you're one of the great community builders in our our our industry as well. Your standards are low. That's your problem. That is a fact. But um community building for me has been something from instilled in me from day one. As you know, Tim Powers was my first coach.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

And uh he invested in a he invested a whole lot more time in me than I paid for. You know, as and he's actually one of my best friends in the world right now. You know, he's just been a great guy. He's been in my corner from like the minute we met. You know, like he's Captain America and I'm Falcon. Like he literally calls me Falcon.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

I'm just gonna go Mickey and Rocky, but you know, that works too.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

I mean, hey, you know whatever works.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Whatever one, Briscoe.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

He does that. You're gonna go out there, you're gonna eat thunder, and you're gonna crap lightning.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Or crap under one of whatever it works.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

W whatever works. Yeah. You know what I mean? But yeah, so that was instant, he has his own community, the Microppers, of students that he that they coached with him, and he took the ones that he knew would, you know, that had some go get him in them. And we made a community of that, and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna absolutely do this exact same thing, and I'm gonna get into as many of these, I'm gonna build my network of voice actors. You know, I don't care whether or not you're a day one, I don't care whether or not you're year 25, you know, it doesn't matter to me because everyone can learn something. You know, and that's one thing that you learn as you start when you start working with people who are just coming in, is that that perspective that they come into the industry with is something that keeps it fresh for you. You know, I know you've been in this a lot longer than I have, but even after the my five my five years, it's like, you know, now you're kind of like in that middle road, not that fresh eyes anymore. You know, the industry's actually different than when I came in now, which is crazy. Five years. That's not a long time. So yeah, um, but building the communities like, how can I support you? How can I support you in wherever you are in your journey? Are you a 12-year vet that now might be seeing things kind of maybe things are a little stale for you, right? Maybe you need those fresher eyes, right? Maybe you don't understand that the read is a little bit different and you need to adjust this, right? And I can also learn from you, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Well, and the you know, one of the best parts for me, and I think for you as well, I don't want to speak for you, but I I think you'll probably agree with this is you look up one day, you're three, five, six, eight years in, and you walk into a Mavo, uh One Voice Dallas, a Vio Atlanta, and you've got hundreds of friends in the room. Yeah, you know? Yeah. Um, I look up at an event and I see Terry Briscoe, and I get this big smile and a hug, and I'm picking beard out of my face for the next few days. Me too. Right. I mean, that's that's the it really adds to the richness of our lives too to build those communities around us, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:07

It does. It does. And also like it, it, you know, it like it gives you that family. You know, not everyone has, I mean, there's some people who are absolutely blessed with having support in the within their family. Right. But there's quite a few of us who their family is like, get a real job.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

You know, it's great being around people who understand the struggle, who understand what it takes, who understand that this is not easy. You're not just sitting down talking.

unknown 15:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Right? Getting yourself into an emotional space where you are in where you have to dig into something that happened in your past in order for you to feel what that script requires of you. It's taxing.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah. It's intoxicating. Right. The one of the struggles that I wanted to bring up, and I think you've got a very unique perspective on this because you were a prior entrepreneur, your voice actor now, and you're prior military. Uh, we've got a bunch of students uh in our signature program, the master plan, and that, and I just even in the larger voiceover community, people come up to me all the time, and they're like, dude, I don't know what to do every day. Like, suddenly I've got X amount of hours to spend on voiceover, whether they're part-time or full-time, and they have no idea how to structure that time. And it first hit me because for whatever reason, when we started the master plan years ago, we got a bunch of military people that came in early, and they were really struggling with this. Um, and the reason I think is the military people are among the most disciplined in the world. You'd think they'd be the last people that struggle with time management. But the military handed them a schedule, right? Yeah, and then learning, talking to other corporate employees, people in the corporate world, it was often that way for them. Talk about time management and maybe even what Briscoe Transportation or Briscoe voiceover has taught you about running your day.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

What it's taught me about running my day is this. And you're like, yeah, you're right. That's a big struggle for people who come from military backgrounds. Like you don't even have to have been in the military for a very long time. You just kind of develop that, like, all right, I get up for PT at four, right? Then it's chow, and then we drill, and then after that, we go to our our our our our AIT stuff, you know, whatever it is, right? That's your day. It's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. This is what I'm done, this is when chow is, and then we're done. Right? Um, you even got to be back on base at a certain time. It's like great. Like literally everything, everything is like set aside for you. And that's tough for people with like, all right, little bird fly, right? And now, like, uh this is the only nest I've known.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Right? So going into that, and not only going into that, but going into entrepreneurship, also, something that's totally different. And who most people don't have entrepreneurial classes, right? You don't go to entrepreneur classes. No one does that. You just jump in and be like, ah, the world's gonna love me. I don't know. Like people have been telling me I have a great voice my entire life. I don't need structure. You'll find out very quickly, though, that if you don't have some structure, that you'll just be floundering, right? Um you've got to I'm not saying you've got a time block. I know a lot of people do time block, and it's very effective for them. And then for military people, it probably is the most effective way. You know, and for some and for some civilians that have that type of discipline. But I think you have to have a game plan. Not necessarily you have to time block, but you have to have a game plan. You've got to put, you've got to set aside some part of your day for marketing. Now, it doesn't have to be three, four hours. Like if you just market yourself to five a day, right? Just consistently, just five a day, by the end of the year, that's a it's a pretty large number by the end of the year that you've at least reached out to. Now, as far as like practicing your craft, which is I think that this is where I think a lot of people fall through the cracks. Not just in the marketing. A lot of people fall through on the marketing, but I think we forget to actually practice our craft. And I don't mean just auditioning. Auditioning is great for practicing your craft, but you need to work with other people. Right? You need to work with other people. You need to work with multiple, you'll always be coaching. That's one of that's one of the things that like, not necessarily one-on-one coaching, but go to those webinars. You know, when somebody like Hugh Klitschke has a has something like a 10, even if even if you're just a fly on the wall, you know, watching other people go through the process, you could pick up something.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

I would say if you're not getting better, you're getting worse because everybody around you is getting better.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

100%. And we saw that a lot during COVID. We saw a lot of the people that were at the upper echelon of voice acting that had never had to turn on an interface, right? They didn't have home, they didn't even have home setups. They were used to just getting a phone call from their agent, and they drove to a studio, and that's what they did. And after that, they were like, Well, you can't come to the studio. What now? And then a lot of people who are in that middle, upper middle section now are top talents. And a lot of people who were those top talents, they dropped down. They might be getting back up now, saying supportive. For whatever reason, we are now the same jobs that we made sure were were that stayed afloat uh by doing it um, you know, by doing it like at home. Yeah. Now all of a sudden you got to come in again.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

A lot of them, yeah. I don't think it's ever gonna go back to the way it was, but but it's certainly the pendulum swing swung, swang back a bit. You know? I like swing. Have a swung.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

It definitely swung swung back, and that is one of the things like when we're doing when we do our our panel in at in um in One Voice, the disability panel that I'll be on coming up at One Voice, we'll be talking about how how did everything go from being remote to now you don't trust us to do this work.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Like that's crazy. If I have a tr if I have a studio that I've literally done work for you in, you know I sound good. Yeah right? Like, how do I now not? You know, but back to the back to the original question. Um, yeah, you always got like you said, you always gotta be getting better or you're getting worse because your competition is getting better. People that have that dog in them that are going to get it, they're gonna be getting better. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be there. Like I'm gonna be there. You see a class, I'm gonna be there. You get it if there's a chat where you can ask questions, you know, if it's a chat where you can ask questions, you're gonna see my name in there. It's gonna happen. Absolutely. Absolutely. I still go to VO101 classes.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. Um the the the final challenge I wanted to talk about briefly is we mentioned at the open, uh, you've been living with MS for quite some time. For those people that have never been told that and have been in the room with you half a dozen times, I'm sure they wouldn't even know it, right? I knew you for probably a year before I knew. Because outwardly, nobody. Nobody can really tell. But Terry can tell. How much does MS affect your daily life and how uh what specific challenges does it present to you as a voice actor?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Well, how to fix my daily well, thank you. Um it's the thing about having an invisible disability, right? Everyone imagines that because if you have a disability, you have to have a wheelchair, right? Or you have to walk with a limp, which sometimes I do walk with a limp. And that's the biggest challenge about MS. How to fix my day? I literally went to go and get an MRI today. That's my IV wound, right? My IV entry point. Um and that's one of the reasons why I actually chose to come in, because I wanted to come hang with my friend after uh after I went through that experience today. Um but on a daily basis, MS is tricky. It's not like other disabilities. Um if you have if you're we if you are wheelchairbound, which many people with MS are, um, I have you know relapse remitting, MS, RMS. Um so for me it's a mixed bag. Some days I could wait, I wake up in the morning, and after I sound like a bag of popcorn after I get up and stretch and pop and click. Um, that's not MS, my friend. That's new age. Oh, yeah, that's that's age. That's age right there. So after I get all the pops and clicks out, I sometimes I feel like I can take on the world. You know, sometimes I feel like I can take on the world, and I uh I'm like, oh, yeah, let's go. And then some days I wake up and I can't well, I never I can never feel the bottom of my feet. Right. So that's like something that after the very first attack that I had, that kind of went away. Kind of feels like if you you know how it feels when like your hand goes to sleep and when it starts to wake up, how it's got that Pins and Needles. Pins and needles, that weird not here, not there feeling. That's how my feet feel all the time, right? Now, watching me walk, you would never know it. But uh so on my daily ba on my daily uh my my day-to-day, I never really know. Like I can't have a game plan because my body just does its own thing. You know, I wait. Sometimes I wake up, I can't feel my left ear. I can't it's just it's very weird stuff, man. And so what is that what has that taught you about adaptability? Oh, it's taught me everything about adaptability, right? Because they don't care, the people on the other end of the screen don't care when I have a session. Right? They just want the job done. You know, most like said, it's not visible. Most people don't know. I keep my like I'm a per I'm a I try to be a personal person. I keep my I actually keep my camera on during sessions. I know a lot of people turn them off, but I want to develop, as we talked about, develop that relationship. Right? So I feel like having your camera on, actually seeing somebody on the other side, them seeing you have a good time doing it, it's gonna make them have a better time doing it. Um, but as far as adaptability is concerned, man, a lot of honestly, I'm gonna be honest with you, a lot of times I just power through. You know, I just power through. Whether I'm tired, I gotta kinda have to conduit. I mean, we're actors, right? At the end of the day, we're actors. I've got to act like I'm fine. You know, I gotta act like we're fine sometimes. And uh days, there are days where, not obviously during sessions or anything like that, but there are days where it's just like uh just an audition and marketing day. You know, I might need to take a day for me.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

I might I just gotta do that. You know, sometimes we don't, and and I don't I don't think you have to be sick to do that. I don't think you have to have any type of disorder to do that. You need mental health days, right? We do this, we do this job we love, so that we can have the lifestyle that we want. Our life, the lifestyle we want isn't being but no matter how much you love it, you don't want to be chained to the booth. You don't want to be chained to the microphone. Right? We want to go out to my favorite place, man. I want to go to Black Hills Park. I want to go out and see all the beautiful things and skip rocks like a little kid, and you know, like I don't take my granddaughter out and you know, we'll just have a walk sometimes. You know, you've gotta we gotta maintain we gotta maintain a life. We do. Right? And that attap adaptability as far as adapting is concerned, that that's what you need to adapt to. You need to find a way to still have a life while you're building this thing we call a business.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Beautifully put. Um let's wrap with this. What do you wish that people who are newer to voiceover or maybe even just uh sticking their toe on the water, just checking it out? What do you wish they knew about the business that they don't?

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Oh man. I wish that they came in with the I wish their coaches came in with the first thing. This is the first thing that I talk to people when I work with them initially. I say to them, I'm like, you understand you need to understand first and foremost that this is a business. It's a fun business, it's a great business, but it is a business, right? And no matter how fantastic your voice is, nobody gives a damn. They're not gonna come be because you know who else has a fantastic voice? Everybody. Everybody else. And sometimes those fantastic voices lose out the people who have just the regular voice, right? So come in from a business perspective first and understand that you are doing everything and you're responsible for every facet of your business.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

And I couldn't put it any better myself. Brother, you are an inspiration. I'm proud to call you my friend, and I just couldn't be more thrilled that you decided to be a part of the uh VO boardroom this year. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Oh man, it's seriously an honor for me having looked at some of those names before. I was like, I don't know what this guy wants me for.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Some good people, man. You know? Fortunately, our business is is one that's dripping with good people. So uh you're one of them. We're see we're super grateful that you spent some time with us today, Terry. Thanks, man.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Thanks, man. Guys, watch the Microphone Insider. All right. There you go. Microphone Insider at Where is it online? Just go to the microphone insider.com.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

There you go. All right. Terry Briscoe, everybody. Thank you so much, Terry.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

All right, Paul. Have a great day, brother.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

You too.