Attendees at the original FaffCon had nothing but glowing things to say about it. After all, how often do voiceover actors get to spend an entire weekend in the company of other working professional voice talent, much less actually sharing ways to improve our performances and business operations to get more work?

I was unable to attend the first FaffCon, held last September in Portland, OR. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know that I would have attended the second one if travel had been involved. However, to my great delight, FaffCon2 was held this weekend in Atlanta. Add me to the list of the glowing FaffCon alumni! Not only that, but I’m already making plans to attend the next one! And yes — there WILL BE a next one, so keep reading!

Let me start by saying that this or any other blog post cannot do justice to the event! I have pages of notes and a head full of great ideas about tactics to take my voiceover business to an even higher level. I finally met people in person whom I’ve known on-line for years, and I also made new friends. Most exciting of all, another participant had an amazing idea as a result of one of the sessions and asked me to collaborate on a new project!

 
FaffCon is the brain child of the vivacious and indefatigable Amy Snively. While FaffCon might seem like a big voice talent meet-up where people just schmooze with each other, it actually is a potentially life-changing educational event that requires tremendous planning and organizational skills. I am extremely impressed with how smoothly everything ran, and I don’t know how Amy possibly had time to sit and enjoy the sessions.

In terms of voiceover training, FaffCon is unique because it:

• is entirely participant-driven
• fosters cooperation and camaraderie rather than competition as egos are left at home
• doesn’t have sales booths in the back — or in any part — of the meeting rooms
• gives participants unparalleled access to go “behind the curtains” to learn success strategies from other professional voice talent and industry leaders

 
Amy explained that we should think of FaffCon as a field of golden nuggets. You have golden nuggets to share with others, and you’ll get some in return. However, no one knows when and how those nuggets might turn up. You may not even know you received a nugget until you’re away from FaffCon and review your notes.

In order to encourage everyone to reveal their secret formulas to success, what happens at FaffCon is supposed to stay at FaffCon. Some of the session highlights for me were:

• 3 sessions with the charming and extremely knowledgeable David Goldberg from Edge Studio in which he discussed and demonstrated why the vast majority of demos are rejected along with other marketing Q&As
• Numerous methods to attract repeat clients from the creative and clever Mercedes Rose
• Inspiration to “invite the avalanche” from the highly esteemed yet incredibly humble Bob Souer
• Positive energy and synergy generated in the session that I led, “The Power of Your Words Away From the Mic”.

I need to decompress, think carefully about what I heard, and develop an action plan to use the armful of golden nuggets that I received. As I said to a number of people over the weekend, everything about my voiceover business is an evolution. FaffCon was a much-needed jolt to help my business evolve exponentially instead of incrementally!

If you’re a working voice-over talent who wants to improve your business, make plans NOW to attend FaffCon3 this fall! I hope to see you there!