Scammers - Avoiding Fraudulent Schemes

VO BOSS

Arm yourself against voiceover scams with insights from Anne Ganguzza and Lau Lapides. The BOSSES shine a light on the potential dangers of casting scams, providing you with the necessary tools and instincts to recognize when something simply doesn't look right. From notorious overpayment traps to false urgency ploys, we dissect the mechanics of these schemes, emphasizing the importance of due diligence and healthy skepticism. Navigating potential job offers can be intimidating, but this episode will help you confidently sidestep the dangers. The BOSSES unpack the nuances of vetting opportunities, the significance of physical company locations, and the red flags that warrant a second look.

00:01 - Intro (Host) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.

00:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Boss Superpower Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with the lovely Lau Lapides. Yay, Nice to be back, Hi Law, as always. Hi Annie, Lau, you know I'm wearing my red today.

00:37 - Lau Lapides (Host) You're looking all red and crimson-y and like ready to rock and roll Like a red flag.

00:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, I'm so punny sometimes. So now what are we going to talk about today? Let's talk about, maybe, red flags and or scams. I know that they are a popular topic, but I think it's something that we need to watch out for in the industry these scams that go around and ask us to submit our voices and then gosh only knows what happens after that. Typically, it has something to do with money, but, yeah, law. What are your thoughts about scams and how we can avoid them as bosses?

01:15 - Lau Lapides (Host) Well, totally prevalent. We get it. It's in every industry. And I have to tell you and I know you've been experiencing this too in the last few years tell you and I know you've been experiencing this too in the last few years there have been an onslaught of hackers and slackers and scammers and bammers and everything you call them. They're around and they are literally coming at you. So, as a business owner, you have to be ready for it. They're literally trying to get through your firewalls, whether it's your website, your software. I have, unfortunately, a resident new stalker who leaves me voicemails. You got to be ready for that. You got to take the personalization and emotion out of it and protect yourself, protect yourself and protect your business Absolutely.

02:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So I know that there's some great first of all resources online that you can find out. I mean, the number one thing is is if you, let's say, get an email or a phone call and it's asking you to submit something personal, like your voice file or an audio file or give money, the first thing that I think you can do is to take action is to Google. Google is your friend and again Google here. Google is your friend and again Google here. Google is your friend because a lot of times, especially even if you get like a phone call right, you can put in the phone number and you can see if it's a phone scam, or you can put in the subject of the email and see if you can find anything out there that talks about it.

02:39 There might be discussions in Reddit. There might be discussions on Facebook that say, yes, this is a scam, don't believe it. But the thing of it is is to make sure. If something doesn't feel right or something is off, then definitely take the first step and research it, go to Google. That's what I would say would be your first step, and then there are lots of other tips and tricks that we have for you. Bosses out there Law. What would you say is your first and foremost line of defense if you feel you've been taken advantage of or are being scammed Right.

03:09 - Lau Lapides (Host) There's a bunch of stuff we can do and, by the way, I would take what Annie said even a step further and I would make sure you're talking to your inner circle of your coaches, your uppers in the industry, people who are in the know, Because I have found, Annie, that if I go to Google, or a lot of you may be now using DuckDuckGo only because Google has a lot of online drones that go after you now. So if you use DuckDuckGo and you're on there, you're going to find they do have websites oftentimes and they do look legitimate and they lift that information. It's very easy to make a landing page. So you have to really talk to people in the industry that really would know to really cross-check. I always say go with your gut instinct. Your gut instinct is telling you something. Listen to it. One of the big scams, Annie, that is out there is the overpayment scam. This is big in our industry. That's where the client sends you, right.

04:02 Well, let's describe what it is for people who don't know what it is. It's a client sends you money, right, and they say that they're expecting to ask you to send the overpayment to someone else. It's like this. We used to call them chain scams. Right, don't do anything of the sort. Never accept money, never send money.

04:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, never send money to somebody who claims to be your client number one. I mean Never, never.

04:26 - Lau Lapides (Host) I mean that's a red flag right there. Right, that's your red flag, right there.

04:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So basically they've sent you money, but it's typically it's a check that is not legit. Yes, exactly. So when they ask you to, send money back, then you basically are just giving them money, the overpayment. You are giving them money for nothing because they've given you a fraudulent check.

04:47 - Lau Lapides (Host) Hello, and what about the urgency one? This plays on your emotions. This is the sense of urgency making you feel like you're under pressure. Right, the client pressures you to like, handle the payment processing really fast, because there's a reason to handle it really fast. And they want to scramble your brain, they want to get you confused and discombobulated. So you're not thinking straight and you're just acting because you may feel like, oh, I want that job, it sounds great. Or you're a little desperate, you haven't worked in a while, sounds like a great job, you don't want to miss out on it. So they'll put that urgency on it for you. So be very, very careful of that.

05:26 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And that urgency can be to submit voice files of which they will not pay you for. That goes back to law. This is like a business practice For me for many, many years. When I negotiate a job with a client, I especially a new client that I'm not familiar with I will always ask for payment upfront. It is not a big thing to ask, as a matter of fact, the way that I'm not familiar with.

05:47 I will always ask for payment up front. It is not a big thing to ask as a matter of fact, the way that I word it in my email is payment is appreciated and preferred up front. Otherwise, other options are available upon request, and so for a new client, I will request that they pay me up front before I even send them an audio file, and I'll tell you what. 99.9% of the time, unless it's a large client that has to go through a process to pay, like through purchase orders or something like that I will get payment and I will request payment electronically, because that way I can guarantee that the money lands in my account first. Then I will send them files, and so, therefore, when it's requested up front after you've negotiated and then it's a statement that is right on my email that says payment in full appreciated made to my Venmo or my PayPal and then basically other options available upon request and I get it.

06:42 Guys, I get it. I've been doing this for years. It's amazing how people are like well, charge 50%. I'm like, no, just ask for the full thing up front. Now, if somebody doesn't want to give you the full thing up front, then get on the phone with them. Make sure there's a human being at the other end of the line. This is not all done through email. These are some tips that I've learned over the years. Right is make sure you've got a human at the other end of the line and check out the business Again. There is a way to research those things online. Is there a business? Is there a phone number At the end of the email? Is there a signature file that has a company name, a way to contact them via email, via phone? I don't care how old school I sound, bosses, I get on the phone and I call yeah, you need to contact them.

07:26 - Lau Lapides (Host) I make sure there's a real person at the other end of the line. What about you? Because here's the other thing too. There's a double reason why you should contact them, especially by phone. If they're going to give you a phone number and that is, if it's a scam they need to know about it. So they need to know their identity has been stolen, and then they can put a post out online that people are coming at you using our name and our identity and it's not us. Yes, yes, absolutely, and they will really appreciate it. So there's the double reason to protect yourself, but also to protect that company, because sometimes they're just not going to know about it right.

07:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Sometimes they're stealing the identity of the company. Absolutely Right Filling the identity of the company.

08:02 - Lau Lapides (Host) Absolutely. One of my clients fell into this one, unfortunately, and that was she was already knee-deep into a job and she had submitted a bunch like 10 pages, 15 pages on a long form, and there were no edits. That's a red flag right there. So, unfortunately, she had already submitted something and she already saw oh, there are no edits. There's something wrong with that job, there's something strange. Also, if you see in your breakdown you're going to get, say, a form letter online asking you to be a VO for AI or for this or for that it could be for anything, right, and the numbers they use are weird. Look at weird numbers. Like we're going to use this from three and a half to 11 and a half months. You know the numbers look strange, they look off.

08:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, that's interesting. I would not have thought about that.

08:52 - Lau Lapides (Host) Yeah, strange numbers, like strange configurations of numbers. We used to look for grammar and lowercase, but now we can't do it anymore because they're going through chat, gpt, so everything is formatted fairly well. How about this one, you guys? How about this one? They're deeply, deeply focused and over-focused on the payment versus the job.

09:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, I agree.

09:15 - Lau Lapides (Host) Yeah, payment, it's all about getting the money quick right.

09:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So they can get in and get out right, Because they really don't care about your audio files or they care about the audio files, and then they just ghost you and won't pay you. And that's a different type of a scam. Typically, that kind of falls within. What kind of clients are you working with? And again, I always say educate yourself on the client that is contacting you as soon as you get an email. That's typically how we get inquiries right. We'll get an email or we'll get a direct message from somebody. Make sure that they have a legitimate domain on the end of their contact information.

09:51 - Lau Lapides (Host) And what if they have a whole bunch of domains that lead you in circles?

09:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Different emails, different domains that confuse you, or a domain that doesn't exist for a company. It could just be somebody at gmailcom or somebody at hotmailcom. I would always look at those people twice because if they're a legitimate company they should have a company domain. It should be yada yada yadacom, and if they don't have that then I would be very suspect. If they do not include a phone number, I would be suspect. If they don't have a real signature file, I would be very suspect.

10:23 - Intro (Host) And as the law said back in the day.

10:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) We used to look for grammatical errors, and now that's less common. Now you've got to look at more people that are stealing identities, and or maybe people who just don't put a valid domain at their email address or there's no way to contact them, even if they have a website. I can't stand when I go to a website and I can't find a phone number to contact someone. That to me— Well, that's unfortunately more common too.

10:49 - Lau Lapides (Host) That, to me, is a red flag. Yeah, and here's the problem with technology is it's getting so good that certain elements are cut out of our industry that used to be there. Like a lot of the bigger companies we work with do not provide you even customer service numbers anymore because they don't have staff to answer phones, so everything is a bot now. So you could be contacted by a bot. You don't know they're a bot. The bot is scheduled to get information, so never give your information out online. No account numbers, no bank numbers, no social security nothing.

11:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm going to say that any legitimate company will have a phone number, or at least any legitimate company will provide that they're harder to find, Annie, and I'll give you an example.

11:32 - Lau Lapides (Host) I'll give you a direct example. We're on the Calendly link. Whether you're using Acuity or Calendly, I dare you to find a phone number for them. And they are a legit global service, their calendars that we use all the time. You use them, we use them all the time.

11:49 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But I'm going to say that's dedicated to maybe software, right? I'm just going to say if you've got a company with people that maybe you're doing a corporate or an e-learning right, yeah, go after it. Yeah, you should absolutely be able to find a way to contact them. I mean, even like I buy a lot of clothing online just saying, Is that a surprise and I have a customer service issue. I want to be able to talk to a human being, right and you're right.

12:14 It is getting more and more difficult to find. However, I'm going to say that your chances are better if you do have a phone number that you can contact a human being at the other end of the line.

12:24 - Lau Lapides (Host) Of course, of course. But remember, I still caution people because I ran into this myself. For the banking fraudsters, because identity theft is number one in the US. So for the banking, they'll send you something that looks exactly like Bank of America exactly like. Paypal and they'll say you owe us $500.

12:43 - Speaker 4 (Host) Here's our invoice yeah, click here to resolve.

12:46 - Lau Lapides (Host) Click here, don't click on anything. Never click on anything. And if you call them, just know you may be calling someone that they hired within their fraud service. So I suggest, if at all possible, go to a location. Go to the location. If it's a bank or financial or whatever, you should be able to find a location where you can talk to someone live, like Annie's talking about, to try to get some sort of vetting on it, because you don't know, they look exactly real, they totally look real. And how about the big game show host? Oh gosh, yes, the game show host. The assignment for the game show host right, everyone's getting excited about that because you've been assigned to be a game show host? Yep, absolutely no, you haven't. No, you haven't, no, you haven't. The next step is going to be asking you for account information. Yes, exactly.

13:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And that's been going on for years and years. And so what they do is they appeal to our emotions, they appeal to our oh my. God, you've got a great job. You've been selected. I even at one point got contacted by Disney, who said that they researched me online and wanted me to audition and I'm like, I'm not so sure about this.

13:54 - Lau Lapides (Host) I don't think so. I mean as good as you all are and, I'm sure, even if you have excellent SEO.

14:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, that's an even bigger target. You're an even bigger target, that's a bigger target.

14:05 - Lau Lapides (Host) That's a bigger target Don't fall into. We found you online. I want you to audition. Well, go through my agent. Go through my agent.

14:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But I will say that I am very much an online business and I do have a lot of people that contact me for legit jobs through my website and through my social media channels and through referrals, and again, those are the ones that I trust. If they're coming through referrals, right, Because then I basically, oh sure, I have the job, but I always have the ability to contact someone or speak to them.

14:35 - Lau Lapides (Host) Oh, that's totally different. I mean, very rarely do I and I think I have pretty good visibility online. Very rarely do I have I found you online. That would be specifically through, like Google Ads purchased SEO. They'll get information, they'll be like a wannabe client of a coaching service or something like that, and you can feel that out very, very quickly. But when it comes to giving you a job as a talent, beware, keep those flags up. How about the interview, annie? Have you seen the online?

15:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) interviews, the online interviews.

15:06 - Lau Lapides (Host) Yeah, I've heard of them vaguely they invite you on to like Signal or Telegram, zoom, skype, whatsapp. Be careful of WhatsApp, you guys. Now, I love WhatsApp because it's free. It's an international community that can get on there for free. Who cannot text you? So I love it. We have it for our Talent Inner Circle members. That being said, do not jump on WhatsApp for interviews with anyone until you have vetted them, because that's a very common scam platform. It's just known to be that, so just be careful. Be aware of that. The language you have to be careful of too. Like does it look weird, even if it's gone through chat GPT. Like does it look strange? The sentence Does it sound strange?

15:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's not formed well, right? Yes, If English is not the first language, right formed well, right. Yes, If English is not the first language, right. So be careful of that. Well, first of all, I'm just going to say that clients that are international and I have a lot of international clients Typically the international clients that I work with are very well-spoken, well-versed in English, because they've worked with clients in the United States before. So if they are not as well-versed, I'll investigate them more. Because number one I want to make sure I get paid. There are certain clients that are known to not pay a whole lot for voiceover and they will give you lots and lots of promises for lots of work.

16:20 A lot of e-learning companies and I'm going to mention a lot of e-learning companies that are not based in the United States that want to hire you for as little money as possible per word. I'm a big person on e-learning that I don't quote per word, but I know a lot of people do, and here's my philosophy is that if somebody's asking you for a particular number per word, then probably right, they're hiring you. Right, You're a company, a curriculum developers or an e-learning company that's hiring the voice talent, so you're not the first line of paying. I'm just going to say because they're hiring you and so they want to negotiate the cheapest price because they don't want to pay a lot.

17:00 When I deal with e-learning clients, I deal with companies directly and I'm able to negotiate a much higher rate. So I don't typically quote on per word. But if somebody starts asking me for my price per word, I will get a little more rigorous about my investigation, because I want to make sure that I'm not going to be haggling over five cents or a penny or a word. And then also I'm going to make sure that I have a point of contact that I am able to contact either via email and that they get back to me right away, or that I can text them and even text if it's a new client. I'm going to try to see if I can call them or have a Zoom call Sure, absolutely.

17:38 - Lau Lapides (Host) Or have a Zoom call Absolutely absolutely. I would also be careful of wiring. Oh yeah, wiring. Wiring is tough nowadays. My partner won't do it anymore. They won't do it anymore, they just won't. They won't do it anymore, they just won't. They don't trust it. So they don't want to do that anymore. They'll do PayPal, they'll do Venmo.

17:53 - Intro (Host) They'll do it any other way.

17:54 - Lau Lapides (Host) But they won't do that. And I mean, needless to say, don't ever send money out for any reason. Ever Don't send it out unless you're sending your commission cut to your particular agent.

18:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's different. Well, that is legit. If a company needs to pay you and wants to pay you ACH, and wants to pay you right into your bank account, you will need to supply your bank account information and, for what it's worth when I investigated it, god, many years ago there's nothing dangerous about providing your account number. The bank itself has security in place so you can provide a full account number to somebody if they request it, and a routing number.

18:39 - Lau Lapides (Host) So all right. So I have a question about that. So let's say you haven't worked with a company. They've reached out to you. You want to work with them. What kinds of practices, Annie, do you use to vet them? Do you ask them for references? Do you ask them for clients? I know most legitimate companies that I know of and have worked with have actually put their client lists out. They're on their website, so I could really reach out to them and say, hey, do you know of this company? Have you worked with them? Whether I reached the right person or not is another thing, but the point is what do you do to vet a company?

19:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, that's a great question. So the first thing I do is I research them online. I do I research them online. I go to their website. I make sure that they have contact information on their website. If they don't, I'll ask the person that emailed me or reached out to me for their contact information. And then I'll say but I can't find a website, or I can't find any contact information. Do you have a point of contact in case I have questions about the project?

19:39 Right, and it becomes very much about you know, I'm interested because I want to be able to get a hold of someone in case I have questions, so that I can service them better, right? So it doesn't appear that I'm paranoid or not trusting, but I am asking in order to serve them better. So I make sure they have a website. And if they don't have a website, then I'm suspicious, because who doesn't have a website these days? If they don't have a website, maybe they're very small, and if they're very small, they might have budget issues. And then I want to make sure that they're going to pay me in full prior to my job start, like I request, and that they will pay me electronically. There will be no checks, or if there is a check, I won't start or deliver the job until I've cashed the check, and that's very rarely the case. I don't know when's the last time you wrote a check.

20:21 Almost never, very rarely, people who can't pay via any sort of electronic method these days or through a credit card, you know that kind of a thing then you're protected by all of that. And so, yeah, definitely research, definitely point of contact. And my last point is like literally talking to someone, and there's a lot to be said for a company's brand and a company's longevity, right. So how long have they been in business? Am I familiar with them? As you mentioned? What other companies have they dealt with? Have they dealt with other people?

20:51 I don't necessarily ask for references right away, because if it's a corporate entity, I might ask around the groups to see if anybody's worked with the company before. And yes, there's an actual group before Nava became very involved called the Red Flags Group. It's a Facebook group started by Dave Kavosier and is still around, where when we all had questions or we're all like hey, have you heard of this? We would post in that group. It's a wonderful group. It's still there. And there are some other groups like, I think, Veopreneur, Mark Scott. Actually, people will ask in that group if there's been contact or if people have worked with that company. And again, it's something you can talk to your accountability buddies or colleagues in the industry to see if they yeah, and I would add on, too your coaches.

21:35 - Lau Lapides (Host) So if you have a coach or a coaching team or have coach, your coaches really should know about this stuff. If they don't know about this stuff, they should be willing to reach out and find out about it. If they're not, that would be a red flag on the coach. Yeah, absolutely, because the coach should really be in the know. Even if you haven't worked with them for a while, they should be in the know.

22:02 I'll give you an example this student that I had in class not too long ago. She wrote to me and she said hey, I want to go FICOR and here are my reasons and I need help. How do I do it? Well, if I said I don't know, I have no idea what it is and I don't know, go figure it out. I would have a red flag about her looking at me saying that and saying well, let me just find out for you, let me figure it out, because I need to know myself. I actually know exactly how to do it, but my point is is that that would take me aback, like who am I working?

22:26 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) with who's my teacher?

22:28 - Lau Lapides (Host) You know what I mean, because this is a very huge issue right now in the union, so it's very relevant and current.

22:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right, and that's another great aspect to a scammer, right, how do you know you're working with a legitimate coach and or demo producer? And I'm going to say, any coach worth their weight is going to offer a consult, a free consult so that you can kind of get a feel. And again, that's something where you're meeting with them on Zoom or you're meeting with them on the phone or you can kind of have a back and forth with that coach so that you can get an idea of their style. You're open to ask any questions and also, again, I think that word of mouth is really valid there I think a coach should have previous student references and or work and or testimonials on there and you can get a lot of knowledge from that. So don't just spend thousands of dollars before you do your own investigation and research and talk to a potential coach and or demo producer.

23:23 - Lau Lapides (Host) And be reasonable about weighing it out. If you're asking your coach who's been in your coach base out of New York, well, what do you know about Mary Jane's out in fiscal Wisconsin? It's not reasonable that they're going to know the answer to that. But what do you know about joining the union these days? They should really know some of those answers to resource you.

23:44 So, anything that's of a national or international. Now, everything's international but national base. They should be in the know, even on the most basic level, or at least be able to resource you to the places you can go.

23:57 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, they're not just voiceover, they should be business. They should also understand the business and the marketplace and the industry enough to be able to guide you. Yeah, right, right, right.

24:07 - Lau Lapides (Host) I always come back to your survival instinct. You have a gut instinct for a reason Like listen to your gut. What's the worst that happens? You lose a job, you miss out on a job, so what? Yeah, that's the worst that happens. You may have saved yourself from a lot of heartache and a lot of hell by jumping into it because you really wanted it or were desperate for it when you knew it was going against your gut instinct. So always go with your gut instinct.

24:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And I get a lot of people who are like okay, so I did a job and I didn't get paid. I can tell you, I've been in this industry over 17 years. I have never not gotten paid, Never, never.

24:42 - Lau Lapides (Host) Wow, never not gotten paid.

24:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's lucky, wow, is it lucky or is it me vetting my clients Could be. I'm going to say yes, I vetted my clients. If I found somebody that I thought was a little bit, I don't know if I want to work with them. If I was hesitant, I chose not to work with them and I'm very fortunate. Again it comes down to I requested that money up front.

25:07 I'm going to say that I feel like that saved me in many, many ways is having that, just that simple statement on my quote that says payment in full is greatly appreciated and available via my PayPal account to annanganguzacom and basically that is it. I never have anybody really contest it and if they do contest it it's because they're a large company that I'm very familiar with and I'm able to get in contact with the people in purchasing who can give me a PO and who can give me the net terms of payment, which sometimes can be 90 days Now have you ever had a company sign that and say, yeah, we're going to give you whatever 50% upfront or 100% upfront and not come through and still do the job?

25:45 No, no, I've always gotten either paid upfront or I've gotten my payment. I've never, ever had that happen. Yes, I'm fortunate, but I also think it has a lot to do with me being savvy and not necessarily picking up clients that are questionable. Right, gotcha and I do have clients where I signed contracts. They went out of business you know what I mean After so many years but ultimately, because I had been working with them for so long, either transferred me to the new owners, right, and then I might've had issues with the new owners.

26:12 But again, I've never where I didn't get the job or I didn't get the offer. I'd say I worked with a company for a very long time and then my point of contact changed, right, that happens quite a bit when you work with clients over a period of many years, your point of contact changes and then maybe you don't have that job anymore because they've brought in somebody new and maybe they want somebody cheaper and it's time to change voices Either way. So that's happened to me, which I think has happened to anybody, but thankfully, I've always gotten paid and knock on wood.

26:42 I'm grateful. And again, just keep my eyes and ears peeled. Now, if you are working with an agent, right, that's what your agent does, right, your agent negotiates those contracts for you. Now, have you ever had at a point where one of your clients didn't come through and pay and then you weren't able to pay? The talent.

27:01 - Lau Lapides (Host) No, I've never witnessed that or seen that happen, not within our agency, but I've had it happen in my coaching business. I've had it happen under Lollapeda Studios a number of times through the years.

27:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Where you've had a student that didn't pay you.

27:13 - Lau Lapides (Host) Yeah, or whatever. Or someone came for a first time, they looked super legit, they took an hour this was in the days in person, right and then they just cut out, they just never paid for it, and then I learned okay, so I have to get it up front, that's okay.

27:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I mean for coaching services, learning lessons.

27:29 - Lau Lapides (Host) I call it learning money. I tried not to get angry and hold on to that because I said that's the nature of some people, so you have to just know your audience.

27:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I did have where, let's say offering services through VO Peeps, where I used to run events, and people will come to events and say I will pay you later, right, can I come? Is there a spot available? Can I come? And yes, being young in the business, sure you can come and then ghost and then not pay. That has happened not often, because after that I got very smart and it's gotten to the point where I host events that are non-refundable at this point.

28:06 - Lau Lapides (Host) Well, that's important actually because everyone would pull out. Everyone would pull out for some reason, even for sickness right.

28:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I try to be very like with coaching if somebody gets sick, I will be very understanding and lenient about that. But now with events, when I run events and I have to sell spots, even if somebody gets sick, I'm sorry. I have a no refund policy and that has developed over 15 years of doing events.

28:29 - Lau Lapides (Host) I do find, though, Annie, honestly, because I've been an event organizer for a long time, most, most, most people take no issue with that. Yeah, exactly, they know most most people take no issue with that. Yeah, exactly, they know. Hey, listen, I punked out, I didn't make it Well yeah, absolutely.

28:40 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's all right.

28:42 - Lau Lapides (Host) And they just forget about it. Very rarely do I have people fighting, because that would be like they would think that they're in the right.

28:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I have people that want credit.

28:49 - Lau Lapides (Host) They get sick and then they want credit and sometimes I'll do that Some big events do that, but I don't think it's a good policy because I think it gives people an out.

28:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, agreed, Guys, be educated, be smart and be savvy and try to avoid those being taken for granted and being scammed. Great episode, Law, Great episode.

29:09 - Lau Lapides (Host) Good stuff, great episode.

29:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) All right, I'm going to give a great big shout-out to somebody I have been with for years and years and years and that is IPDTL. I love IPDTL. Still continue to actually do all of my coaching sessions via IPDTL. So many advantages to that. It's a great quality, fantastic audio quality. My students can record their sessions. It's amazing. I have playback. It's super easy. Guys, you can find out more at IPDTLcom. Connect and network like bosses Law. Thank you so much. It's been amazing. Bosses, have a great week.

29:41 My pleasure We'll see you next week. Bye, see you next week.

29:46 - Intro (Host) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Ann Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission.

30:06 - Speaker 4 (Host) Coast-to-coast connectivity via IPDTL and corporate narration, and even just working with her on my e-learning reads has made me a better voice actor when it comes to the corporate narration work that I get in, and I can hear the difference from the first day I coached with her up until today when we had our session, and I'm really excited to see how much more I'm going to keep growing and keep outsmarting all the AI bots, because she'll give you tips on that as well of how not to sound like you're just reading or how not to sound like an AI voice but actually sound like a human.

30:51 I love that Anne cares about her students and their success, because she's such a good teacher and she's a teacher at heart, and so you know when you're gonna work with her, you're going to do your best and it might really push you sometimes, but when you can look back on your growth and see just how far you've come, you know all the tears, the blood, sweat and tears is gonna be worth it. So thank you, anne, for taking your time with me and helping me get past those moments of frustration to finally understand and grow as an actor. I really appreciate it.