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Know the value of your VO worth! Anne welcomes voice talent and rate negotiation expert, Maria Pendolino. They cover red flags in contracts, rate setting in an evolving industry, and how to educate clients on what you really provide as a talent and as a #VOBOSS. In this episode, Maria shares her thoughts on negotiation within the AI landscape, contract red flags, and more… Get more at https://voboss.com Transcript >> It’s time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast, the AI and Voice series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I'm thrilled to have award-winning voice actor and negotiation educator Maria Pendolino with me today. Maria frequently presents at conferences and in the community about rates, negotiation, and quoting your worth. And she's absolutely amazing and phenomenal. She's also the founder of millennialvoiceover.com, where she helps companies speak millennial as well as bluewavevoiceover.com, which is a hub for progressive and Democratic voiceover services. And she lives in Buffalo, New York, which is literally 40 minutes away from where I grew up, with her husband and three HDTV famous studio cats, Nelly, Mozzi, and Two Scoops. I love those names, Maria. Thanks so much for joining me today. Welcome. Maria: Thank you for having me. They're the real stars. Really. I work for them. Anne: I hear that with my three, but I love the names Mazel and Two Scoops. I'm wondering where the Two Scoops name came from. Maria: Yeah, so we have his, hers, and ours cats. So Two Scoops is my husband's cat that he adopted before we were dating. And he said, when he picked her up as a kitten, she fit in his hands, like two scoops of ice cream. Anne: Oh, that's so cute. Maria: That's what she looked like, like head and butt. And then Nelly is my cat that I adopted, and then Mozzi is short for mozzarella cheese. So she's the one that we adopted together. So her full name, her, her regal given name is Mozzarella Cheese Pendolino Brownton, so Mozzi, Mozzi for short, when she's just palling around with the girls. Anne: I love Mozzi. That's fantastic. [laughs] Oh, that's amazing. Well, we love our studio animals don't we? Maria: We sure do. Anne: That is for sure. So tell the BOSSes -- if they don't know you by now, they really should. So tell us a little bit about yourself and how it is that you became a master negotiator. Maria: Sure, absolutely. I have been acting since I was like 11 years old. I was one of the most annoying musical theater children who was begging their parents to drive them to open calls for the community theater production of Sound of Music. Like that is who I grew up to be. I went to college for theater, and I moved to New York City right after I graduated from college. And I actually had a full-time job in banking at the time. I took the job as a way to get to the city. And my plan was, I'm going to work for a year, pay off some of my student loans, maybe learn how to dance a little bit better, and then I'm going to be on Broadway. Turns out that didn't happen. [laughs] So I actually ended up working for the bank for almost 10 years, and I was good at it. I was a people person. I was a hard worker, and I moved up, and I was getting promoted, and I was making a lot of money and it was great. Then I was doing acting on the side. So I was auditioning for the off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off Broadway. Uh, I was doing cabarets and things that, you know, were rehearsing at night or weekends. And then, you know, if something big came up, I would like take a day off of work or tell people I had like a dentist appointment. I know one time I got an audition for the Hairspray movie that John Travolta was in. And I literally like took a half day at work and was like, I have a doctor's appointment. And I'm like running to Midtown to audition for a movie, you know, keeping -- stuffing my banking clothes, like, in my tote bag. So I did that. And then the recession hit in, you know, around 2008, 2010. And I found myself sitting in a cubicle graveyard at a bank, and I was like, God, this is not really what I wanted to do with my life. And I think I need to make a change. So, uh, I quit my job, and I kind of pushed myself into acting full-time. Um, I was doing mostly theater, TV, and film in New York. And I looked at voiceover and commercials in general as just like a sidecar opportunity. Like, oh, maybe you can squeeze one of these in between a booking or, you know, they happen occasionally. And then I started to realize how much I really loved voiceover. Like, you get to come into the booth, you do your work, you leave. You don't get picked up by hair and makeup at 3:00 in the morning. Anne: Yeah, right? Maria: You're not on set for 18 hours. And I was like, what am I doing with my life? At the same time, I was kind of having this realization and some of my voiceover work was taking off, I was also experiencing some difficulties. I have psoriatic arthritis and, um, I was having trouble with my knees and my joints, and New York being the pedestrian wonderland that it is -- Anne: Yes. Maria: -- it's just harder and harder to get around. And I was like, you know what? If I made this pivot, if I invested into my voiceover career and everything that that could be, I could have a full life as a working actor and not have to worry about, you know, this health and physical challenge that sometimes rears its ugly head. You know, you can walk into a studio and just say like, hey, can I have a stool? Nobody bats an eye. Anne: Right, right. Maria: You know, so yeah, around 2014, that's when I kind of made the, the sharp right turn, left turn, whichever way you want to go, uh, into voiceover to have that be my primary acting pursuit. And I've been a full-time voice actor ever since I've been doing voiceover now for about 11 years total, but as a full-time voice actor for about seven years. Anne: And you are a dynamo for sure. I look up to you [laughs] especially for those negotiation skills, which I think have come in super handy with the events of the day. Not even the events of the day today, but literally always in our businesses, we need to be good negotiators in order to be successful. Maria: Absolutely. Anne: Yeah. I mean, as you know, there's been all sorts of discussions recently about new technologies on the horizon and jobs with, you know, for TTS, for synthesized voices, AI voices, that's all the buzz. And, uh, I'd like to get your opinion. What are your thoughts on these new technologies? Are they going to be taking our jobs away? Maria: I think they're all very interesting. I think, I think some will take jobs away, but that's also how, you know, the evolution of industry works, you know? Anne: Yeah. Maria: Uh, cars took away the jobs of the horses and the carts and all of that. Anne: Yeah. Maria: Like there's a thousand things that you can point to that, you know, the new, the new item kind of superseded what we had always done. Anne: Right, right. Maria: I think the, the things that will be the first kind of stuff to go as the AI and synthesized voices get better and better and more fine-tuned and really have, you know, a natural voice engine as opposed to something more robotic, is just going to be some of the low hanging fruit. Anne: Yeah. Maria: You know, if somebody, you know, would normally hire an actor to do a scratch session, they're going to use an AI voice to do the scratch session, and then hire an actor to do the real thing. Companies that have historically low-balled actors saying, oh, we pay $.03 a word and $.05 a word -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- instead of a more industry standard, you know, $.30 or $.40 a word, those companies are going to turn to using AI voices when they're good enough to meet their client's expectations, because they clearly weren't putting a huge value on the talent in the first place. Quality of the voice was never the most important thing that they were searching for. They were searching for the best price and then assuming that everything else would just be good enough. So I think those types of things will absolutely be affected as the AI voice engines get better and better. But I think things that require an actor, like truly require an actor -- so you have genres like animation and video games, commercials -- I just can't see an advertising agency that is, you know, working on a multi-million dollar brand campaign that includes on-camera actors, uh, media buys of multimillion dollars saying, you know what, we're not going to pay the voiceover actor, their session fee and their usage. And instead, we're going to go to a synthetic voice and trust this multimillion dollar production -- Anne: Sure. Maria: -- and this multi-billion dollar media buy to that. So, you know, I think there are some genres that maybe have a little bit more protection, but where acting hasn't been the primary concern, and perhaps it's been more about just, you know, a get it done mentality, or where voiceover has been, you know, for accessibility compliance only, as opposed to something that they truly invest in -- I'm thinking of things like audio description -- Anne: Yup. Maria: -- or audio narration just for perhaps a visually impaired community -- I think it's possible that those types of things would be replaced by a high quality AI engine. But the flip side of that is they currently use voices to make AI engines. So the question is -- Anne: Exactly. Maria: -- do you, as a voice actor, want to be a part of that new side of the business, the same way that, you know, did you want to be a voice that is going to be on the internet before the internet was coming around? Anne: Yeah, right. Maria: As these new technologies like emerge, do you want to be a part of that? And the question is, does it affect your business in a positive or negative way to do that? Anne: Sure. Maria: And that's what we're seeing, you know, with the story that came out with Bev Standing and TikTok. You know, can it, can it have a positive effect on your business? Can it have a negative effect on your business? And also are you in the driver's seat? Is -- Anne: Oh, absolutely. Maria: -- are you choosing -- Anne: Absolutely. Maria: -- to make the engine and be a part of that, or is someone making that choice for you? Which that puts the voice actor kind of in that negative position, that feeling like you're being taken advantage of. Anne: Sure. Maria: But I think those are two very different things, choosing to do it, being compensated fairly, agreeing to do the work, versus having your intellectual property stolen. Anne: Yeah. I mean, excellent, excellent point. So I think it's so very important now more than ever with what you just said for us as talent to know our worth. And so whether we choose to go digitally or, you know, we want to be in that, in that arena, I think we need to be compensated fairly, and we need to know that yes, our voices are worth something, and we need to, I think that stems from knowing your worth. What can you speak to about that sentiment and how it can affect us moving forward in the industry? Maria: Yeah. Knowing, knowing your worth and what your work is worth is kind of like one of the top five things that you need to do as a business owner. Anne: Yeah. Maria: You know, you can't just open a restaurant, and put the menus on the table, and just say like, I'm not sure what you should pay for that salad. Do you know what you should pay for that salad? That's not how a business operates. So I think it behooves everyone to do their own research and figure out what's right for them and their business and their investment of time and their workflow and everything. There's not one universal, you know, price or policy that you can say like, this is the way it has to be, but there are, you know, we have industry standard guides, and we have, you know, industry experts that you can, you can draw upon. But doing that research and actually coming up with an answer for yourself is a really critical thing. You know, you can make your own internal rate card or rate document for, you know, your most popular categories or your most popular hits, if you will. So that, you know, when you get an email from a client, and they ask you for a quote, or they ask for more information, you don't have to go back to square one every time. Anne: Right, right. Maria: And you don't have to publish that document. You don't have to put it on your website. Anne: Absolutely. Maria: That can just be your internal cheat sheet, but keeping in mind the, you know, the value of the different things. So, you know, being compensated for a session fee, being compensated for usage and understanding the difference -- Anne: Right, right. Maria: -- between being paid to actually do the work, the time you spent doing the work, versus being paid for your voice being licensed for a period of time, for a specific purpose. I think a lot of people come into the marketplace as a freelancer, whether that's voiceover or otherwise. And if you have come from like a traditional 9-to-5, or you came from, you know, an hourly wage job, and somebody tells you, I need you to do a voiceover for a 30-second piece, and we're going to pay you $350 -- if you're accustomed to making $13.75 an hour -- Anne: Yeah, that sounds great. Maria: -- doing something for 30 seconds for $300 sounds amazing. And a lot of times I think, you know, people, people get very angry and defensive about kind of the commoditization of voiceover and how on online casting sites, or sites like Upwork or Fiverr, or, you know, the voiceover specific sites, you know, that everything is down to this like bottom line price. A lot of times, I don't even think it comes from client malfeasance. I think it comes from they just don't know. They're like, well, a 30-second voiceover will probably take them 15 minutes to record. Anne: Exactly. Maria: Probably you need to pay them for an hour. And it's just, I think the way that you can best empower yourself as a talent and as a small business owner, who's running a voiceover business, is to take the time to truly understand the different services you provide, what the, you know, industry standard ranges are for those services, whether you're -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- working with union scale or whether you're using non-union rate guides to approximate your ranges, and then find yourself some language, some go-to statements that you can be equipped with. Anne: Right, right. Maria: So when a client says to you $1,500 for a 30-second spot? That's insane. Anne: Right. Maria: And you can say, well, you're not paying me for 30 seconds. Anne: Right. Maria: You're paying me because you'd like to use it for a year and a half or whatever it is. Anne: You know, and you mentioned something earlier about, you don't always have to go back to square one, but if we are actually on the forefront of, let's say, developing a rate guide for TTS or synthesized AI voices, I think it's kind of cool to be on the ground floor of that so that, you know, a lot of times, as a, as an entrepreneur and a business owner, sometimes there is no category. Sometimes there is no established rate for it. And I think there's a lot to be said for an entrepreneur or, you know, a successful business person that really, sometimes you just have to make a rate. [laughs] Maria: Yeah. Anne: There's nothing necessarily to base it on. And I just want those BOSSes out there to know that sometimes there is nothing to base it on. I mean, there's things that are relevant in the rate guides, and -- but sometimes you have to come up with that number yourself. And that takes a lot of courage actually. And people don't necessarily realize that. And that's why I'm sure, Maria, that you have gotten frantic texts or emails from people saying, oh my gosh, it's my first job. I have no idea what to charge. Can you help? Maria: Absolutely. Anne: That just happens all the time. And I just want to say that if we are on the, if we were on the brink of a new like category or a new type of voiceover, don't be afraid to go out there and make a, a price for yourself. But again, as, as you were saying, we have to know our worth, and we can at least have baselines from other genres that we can at least establish. And we can also, you know, start a community too, that we can say, what do you think? Is this? And then we can kind of establish a baseline for that. Maria: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, it's important for people to understand that you are an individual business, and ultimately in the, in the free market, in the spirit of competition, you have the ability to set your price at whatever you want. Anne: Right. Maria: And I think you can use the tools that are available to you. You can do a lot of research. You can check in with peers, ask for a gut check, whatever. But at the end of the day, the paycheck is going to hit your checking account. Anne: Right. Maria: Not anyone else's. You don't owe an explanation to the entire community that you work with based on whatever you chose. At the end of the day, you get to decide how much you pick up the mic for, and your price is different than my price, is different than the next person's price. Anne: Right. Maria: And it should be, it should be. It should be your individual calculation of what you want. But I agree with you, you know, there, there are things that are emerging every year. There's a different type or way for voiceover to be used, whether that is, you know, new and exciting, uh, avenues for advertising. You know, we've seen things go from broadcast TV, to streaming TV, to dynamic audio insertions. Anne: Yeah. Maria: You know, you're listening to online radio, and it knows that -- Anne: Yup. Maria: -- you live in this area, and you're getting the lunchtime message. And it's all calibrated in these different ways. There will continue to be innovations. So we, as an industry that is adjacent to these other industries, we also have to innovate. And if you want to take advantage of these new and burgeoning opportunities, you have to be kind of Intrepid and put yourself out there, and then -- Anne: Absolutely. Maria: -- rely on professionals and peers, whether that is an accountant, or a lawyer, or an agent, or a manager, rely on the people that you have in your circle, in your team to gut check you, to review things. Pay a lawyer to review a contract and make sure that you are not giving away or signing away or missing something. Anne: Right. There's a lot of legalese. There's a lot of new terms. And if you don't understand something, ask. Don't just assume that it's all going to be okay, because that's not the case. That's not the world we live in. And I do think that actors in particular, and I think this probably applies to a lot of artists -- you know, we have a scarcity mentality sometimes. Anne: Absolutely. Maria: You are trained as an actor to believe that each job leads to the next job. Oh, the director is really gonna like you, they'll hire you for the next job. Anne: Right. Maria: You got to do a good job. You gotta be a team player. So we have this mentality of like, we have to say yes to anything, 'cause it could lead to the next thing. Oh, if you do this ad, even though they're using, you know, a low budget, whatever, you know, they'll keep you in mind when they do the next, you know, big one or whatever. And it's like, well, okay, you know, that sounds like a good opportunity. And you have to evaluate those as they come along. But it doesn't mean that you have to be in the backseat for your career. Anne: Absolutely. Maria: It doesn't mean that you have to take a backseat and just accept what's being given to you. You can still be very active. You can negotiate. You can tell them that you don't agree with terms, you know, if they're written out on a contract or a scope of work. You have to be an active participant in that. Anne: Absolutely. And I think that's super important. So I would say, tip number one, at least in a lot of cases where people have asked me, I always say, don't be afraid to negotiate and mark up a contract. I mean, you absolutely have that right. What would you say, what would be your best tips in terms of when you're negotiating with clients on pricing for any jobs? Maria: Sure. Anne: But I'm thinking specifically for these new ones that might be coming up because there's a lot of ways that our voices can be used, and as we've seen with, with the TikTok case and Bev, we just didn't intend. And so what would you, what sort of red flags would you look out for, and what tips could you give us when negotiating with clients on those types of jobs? Maria: Absolutely. So some of the red flags that you want to look out for are the phrasing, you know, usage in all media. And that could be followed by "currently in existence or to be invented." So it's like, you know, we want to be able to use the voiceover that you're providing on literally anything that exists now and anything that gets invented. So that is typically a red flag indicating that, especially if you do commercial work, that that could, you know, create conflicts in your business. Because they're saying that even though you're agreeing to do this project for this specific purpose, let's say they wanted you for an explainer video or something, you're actually giving them the right to use that explainer video in an all media kind of release. They could use it on television, they could use it on phone systems. They could use it in a TTS engine. They could use it on the moon. That's the kind of -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- rights and usage that you're giving away. Another phrase that you want to look out for is transformative rights or, uh, rights to create derivative content. And those are the phrases that specifically come into play when it comes to things like TTS and synthesized voices. So by giving them the right to transform your voice files, that's how they can be transformed into a voice engine like a TTS. Anne: Absolutely. Maria: Or the derivative rights, meaning "we hired you to do a voice for a telephone system. And because you did such a multitudinous amount of recordings, we can actually create other derivative recordings from the work that you did. We can slice and dice or whatever and create new recordings. And then we don't have to pay you for them." Anne: Right. Maria: So you want to look out for releases that include transformative rights or the right to create derivative content. The other thing you can look out for is the kind of standard work product and copyright language. Most of the time, you know, clients will tell you that when you are being hired, the voiceover that you're providing is work for hire, work product for hire. And therefore they are going to have the right to copyright that material. If you're doing a very, very large project, or if you are involved in the creative aspect of it and are not just, you know, voice talent reading script for hire, you may want to try and negotiate out that so that you can retain the copyright -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- to your voice files. Anne: Good stuff, good stuff. Now, in regards to, if you don't sign a contract, when I spoke to Rob, Bev's lawyer, he was stating that because there was no contract, if it was recorded in her studio, they belong -- the copyrights belong to her. Maria: That's really interesting. Yeah. I mean, I don't do a contract for every job. Anne: Right, right. Maria: You know, if, if a client sends me a contract, I read it and you know, my best practice is to come back to the client, if I want to make changes. And I say, hey, I'd like to make some adjustments to the contract. Am I okay to -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- you know, strike and initial? Anne: Exactly. Maria: Or would you like me to, you know, state my comments so that you can edit the document? And then it goes from there. But, you know, I make sure that in the email, I'm always kind of stating or restating like what we've agreed. Anne: Exactly. Maria: So if I audition for a project on an online casting site, and perhaps, you know, the usage, isn't 100% clear, when they come back to me and say like, hey, we got your audition. We'd love to work with you. My reply will always be, great. I'd like to confirm the usage for the piece. Anne: Yes. Maria: This is my understanding. Is that correct? And I make sure that I get some kind of affirmative reply from them. Anne: Excellent. Maria: I feel like, you know, that kind of protects me in that way. Anne: No, absolutely. That's a, that's a great tip. Maria: Yeah. But I, there are definitely jobs that I've walked away from. Anne: Yeah. Maria: You know, I walked away from, you know, what would have been a, a multi-level project job because they had a kind of all-inclusive boiler plate release that was written by a general counsel who may or may not still work at the company. And I explained to them very plainly, like why I had a problem with it. And I was like, you are asking for everything and the kitchen sink, but you are absolutely not going to use it for everything and the kitchen sink based on the scope of the project. And also you are not paying for everything and the kitchen sink. I am happy to give you the exact usage that this project requires. Anne: Exactly. Maria: And if you need it for something else later, I'd be happy to negotiate with you. Anne: Yes. Maria: But I'm not going to give you broadcast television rights, for press one, press two phone prompts. That's just not going to happen. Um, and they were like, we're sorry, we can't make any changes to that release. You know, we'll consider, we'll consider this canceled. And it's like, bon voyage, sorry. Anne: So I love that you just gave that scenario because that really is a wonderful tip in terms of when you are communicating with a client in clarifying usage of what things you need to look out for and what things that you can specify. You know, I've gotten to the point where my terms, you know, for the licensing of anything non-broadcast is, you know, is a particular length of time. And I specify that in my email. And so when there's the back and forth, and there's the agreement, it then becomes my quote, unquote contract, so to speak. And also, I know other people who do it on the invoice, but I don't think that's the right timing. What are your thoughts about that? Maria: Yeah. I know some people have like their terms on the invoice and basically the paying of the invoice signifies that, you know, they accept the terms, and I think that's fine. The problem is that, what happens if you've done the job, and you've had, you know, casual back and forth on email, but didn't go -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- into like deep, deep, nitty-gritty, and they get your invoice, they see your terms in the like, hey, you know, I've just had a training with our legal department -- Anne: Right, yeah. Maria: and I'm not allowed to sign this. I'm not allowed to pay this based on what you've said. Can we deal with it? And it's like, well, what happens? My invoices typically I send maybe like three or four days after a session in my personal workflow. What if I've already delivered them the audio? It could already be on television -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- by the time that they get the invoice and are not agreeing with it. Anne: Right. Maria: So I think if you want to use that as a, like a backup or like a final, like, thing that's on a piece of paper outside of email, that's fine. But I don't think that anything on your invoice should come as a surprise to your client after you've already done the session, conducted the work or anything like that. That feels a little bit like a bait and switch -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- if you didn't have the conversation about what's in those terms ahead of time. Anne: Good advice. Now, I'm going to assume that if you have an agent that might be negotiating on your behalf, or you're, maybe you're a member of the union, there are, there are other resources for you, legal resources or resources that can help you with negotiation. Any tips on that particular topic, on agents, the union, or just going at your own? Maria: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think, you know, just, just like anything else, some people are comfortable with it and some people aren't. Anne: Yeah. Maria: You know, I, I had the benefit of working in business for several years and kind of got comfortable with corporate legalese and, you know, dealing with larger companies and entities. So I'm personally comfortable negotiating for myself. I work with a lawyer if I have a contract that I feel is particularly laborious that I would like some help reading, or maybe I just -- Anne: Agreed. Maria: -- like to delegate with confidence. I would rather pay you $250 to read -- Anne: Yup. Maria: -- versus me sitting with these 30 pages and a glass of pinot. Anne: Yeah. I completely agree with you. I am right there with you. Maria: Yeah. And I have, I have a fantastic management team. I'm represented by some really great agents in different cities. And, you know, if I felt that it was in their area of expertise, or it related to a similar project that we had done, I would absolutely not have a problem to call them in and help me out with that. Anne: Great. Maria: But the majority of things that I'm negotiating on my own fall into the industrial and non-broadcast categories. Anne: Mm-hmm, absolutely. Maria: These are the medical narration, corporate narration, e-learning. And not that my agents and managers aren't capable of handling that, but actually I don't want them spending their time on that. I want them spending their time finding the next fantastic ad agency to work with, finding fantastic auditions for me. And I want them to focus on that. I actually don't want them to focus on spending, you know, two hours hammering it out, a $.30 per word -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- narration contract. Anne: e-Learning narration, right. Maria: It's just, it's not what they do best, and it's not the focus of their business. So, you know, I'm not going to delegate it that way. If you are the type of talent that 85, 90% of what you do comes from your agent and you get a job out of the blue occasionally here and there, and you're just not comfortable with that, then absolutely, use them and allow them to take the commission of it. For a talent like that, it would absolutely be worth it. For someone like me, who's built up a huge industrial business -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- that I've sourced through my own marketing and my own auditioning, my agents and managers aren't involved in that kind of industrial side of my business. I'm not really sure if the union has resources with regards to negotiation. Obviously just by virtue of having, you know, fantastic contracts that are very -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- you know, talent protected. You're -- automatically, you get some, some base productions there. So if you're working on a union contract, and they're using the standard SAG-AFTRA -- Anne: Well, I would say they're using lawyers. Yeah. Maria: Yeah. Using the standard SAG-AFTRA paperwork, then you have your actor protections built in right there, but I've always found, you know, the membership and the voiceover help team there to be very helpful. So if you were working on a union project and you had questions about the contract or questions about, you know, the particular usages of the project that you're working on, I'm sure that, you know, they'd be, they'd be able to help. Anne: Wow. Fantastic advice, Maria. I really appreciate you spending time with us today. Where can BOSSes get in touch with you? I also hear you've got a course on negotiation coming out. So that is a very cool thing that I would recommend. Or how can they get in touch and consult with you? Maria: Yeah, absolutely. I'm putting the finishing touches on my online course about negotiation. It's a self-paced course that you can kind of come back to again and again, and it goes over some of my favorite phrases to keep conversations going when you're -- Anne: Fantastic. Maria: -- negotiating with clients, some suggestions for, you know, how to ask clients for their budget and how to negotiate from there. Hopefully it'll be coming out in about a month or two. If you would like a notification when the course is live and you can purchase it, also be giving out some discount codes. You can send me an email at hello@voicebymaria.com. And I'll add you to the list for notification. I have been kind of full up on my coaching and consulting calendar for both business coaching and negotiation coaching, but I will be opening up my calendar again after the VOcation Conference. So if you would like similarly a notification when there are slots available on the calendar to book either a negotiation coaching or a business coaching, again, just send me an email, hello@voicebymaria.com. And I will add you to the blast list to know when there are slots to gobble up. Anne: Awesome. Maria, thank you so very much for your time again, I'm going to give a great, big shout-out to our sponsor ipDTL. You too can connect and negotiate like BOSSes using ipDTL technology. Find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing week, and we'll see you next week. Bye! Maria: Bye! >> Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host Anne Ganguzza. And take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at voboss.com and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a BOSS. Redistribution with permission. Coast to Coast connectivity via ipDTL.