Together Digital Power Lounge, Women in Digital with Power to Share

Building the Sound of Change

• Chief Empowerment Officer, Amy Vaughan

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When a young Christy Harst first announced she would one day replace Barbara Walters, her father laughed. Years later, that spark of determination would carry her through the competitive world of marketing, television, and eventually, voiceover—where she discovered just how few women were given the mic. Instead of waiting for an invitation, Christy decided to build her own door—and open it for others.

In this Power Lounge conversation, host Amy Vaughan, Chief Empowerment Officer of Together Digital, talks with Christy about how one moment of frustration became a movement. From realizing the imbalance in sports voiceover work to launching Building Doors VO, Christy shares how she turned awareness into advocacy and data into impact.

Amy and Christy explore what it takes for women—and the men who support them—to create real pathways in industries still dominated by old systems. They discuss the power of collective action, the influence of representation, and why inclusion isn’t charity—it’s good business.

This conversation is for anyone ready to push boundaries, elevate voices, and reimagine what opportunity sounds like.

Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
00:10 – "Empowering Voices in Media"
06:10 – "Combining Sports Passion with Voiceover"
11:39 – Breaking Barriers for Women Everywhere
17:27 – "Using Privilege to Empower Change"
22:09 – "Power, Privilege, and Responsibility"
27:31 – Voice Bias Study Sponsorship
34:15 – "Breaking Barriers with Building Doors"
38:40 – Power of Collaboration
45:09 – "Ask for the No"
48:04 – "Evangelizing Through Data and Stories"
56:14 – "Connecting Communities and Networking"
59:44 – "She's Inspiring and Successful"
01:01:51 – Outro

Quotes:
"Life doesn’t just happen to you—it happens for you. When a door closes, build your own and leave it open for others."- Amy Vaughan

"Change begins when we stop waiting and start creating. Use your voice, stand together, and build doors wide enough for everyone."- Christy Harst

Key Takeaways:
Build Your Own Door—And Make Room for Others
The Power of Community—and Collective Action
Data with a Dose of Storytelling
Spot Bias, Create Change
Allyship in Action
Every Micro-Action Matters
Your Authentic Voice is Powerful
Representation Shapes Reality

Connect with the guest Christy Harst:

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/christyharst/
Website: https://www.buildingdoorsvo.com/

Connect with the host Amy Vaughan:
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/amypvaughan
Podcast:https://www.togetherindigital.com/podcast/

Learn more about Together Digital and consider joining the movement by visitingHome - Together Digital

Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our weekly Power Lounge. This is your place to hear authentic conversations from those who have power to share. My name is Amy Vaughn, and I am the owner and chief empowerment officer of Together Digital, a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital and choose to share their knowledge, power, and connections. You can join the movement at TogetherIndigital.com. And today we are joined by someone who is literally changing the sound of an entire industry. Christy Harst is a voiceover actor, former college athlete, and fierce advocate for gender equality in media. When Christy encountered the barriers women face in sports voiceover work, she didn't just break through for herself. She founded Building Doors VO to create opportunities for women in the industry historically dominated by male voices. Christy's voice has become the national brand voice for YouTube TV, Walmart, and John Deere, but her real impact goes far beyond the mic. She is using data and storytelling to challenge the status quo in media representation, pro proving that equality isn't just the right thing to do. It's good business, as we all know. Working from her Studio Brick studio in Cleveland, Ohio, holler to our Cleveland members and fans. We love Cleveland. Christy has come become a leading voice for gender diversity in the voiceover community. And today she'll share how women across digital fields can amplify their voices and build their own doors. Welcome, Christy. We're so excited to have you here on the Power Lounge.

unknown:

Yay!

SPEAKER_00:

I'm very excited to be here too. Fantastic. Well, we are here with our live listening audience as well. So hi, listening fans. We love that you're here. You know, you could be anywhere else, but you chose to spend some time with us today. Use that chat. Let us know if you have questions for Christy. You're already getting lots of shout-out and love in the chat. So look at that. We're off to a great start there. Fantastic. Don't be shy. Ask your questions. I'm going to go through a number of questions and then I'll check in with y'all one more time before we go into our power round of some fun little rapid-fire questions. But Christy, you know, origin is such an important aspect of like who we are, where we came from, how we came to be who we are. It's always inspiring to hear that. I'm curious, you went from a college athlete to a voiceover actor and now an equality advocate. What made you realize that the voiceover industry needed a dorm built and not just a knock on that little door?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, thank you for the opportunity to kind of share a little bit more about how I got to where I am today. Uh, I also want to say thank you very much to all the door builders who are in the chat who showed up. Yay, thank you. Love it. Um, so I majored in broadcast communications in college and I wanted to be the next Barbara Walters. For those people who are not familiar with who Barbara is. Don't know what to say. Yeah, showing you. Um Barbara, you know, as a 12-year-old girl, I I was raised in a very strict Catholic house and I wasn't allowed to watch a lot of things on TV. Yeah and so on Friday nights I would sit, because you know that's that's what we did. We were cool. I sat with my parents on Friday nights and watched 2020. And so I remember I stood up after watching her uh many times and said, I'm gonna replace her someday. And my dad laughed. You know, Barbara was the only woman who was on nightly news, literally, the only woman. Yeah, she was interviewing some of the most powerful and some of the most influential people in the world, yeah, and had a reputation for making them cry, getting them emotional.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And so as a young girl, to see that, right, as an example, and as the only example, right, um, I I took that and wanted to become much, I wanted to be Barbara, right? I wanted to get Barbara out of her chair. So went to college, mastered uh majored in broadcast communication, and I was at my final internship. I had four internships in college, and the last one was at MTV in New York. Nice. And I saw how women, specifically this one woman, she was there were three top positions at MTV, two men and one woman. And my intern desk was right a diagonal.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03:

And what I saw and what I heard was not something I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't want to have to be like that to get to Barbara status. And so if I'm at MTV and I'm a senior in college and I'm seeing this woman who's at the top of her game, yeah, and she has to act like this, I don't want it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So I said, well, I'm just gonna get some other type of job a job. So I worked in nonprofit and government and real estate development doing marketing and PR. So I had about 10 or so years in marketing and PR, and I would drive every day to work and listen to commercials on the radio, and I would be disgusted. I can do so much better than that. Why am I not doing that? And so I made a New Year's resolution one year to get an agent, and I did. And I had that agent for 17 years, and I did national television commercials on camera. It started off with a lot of on camera because when you're um, you know, 22, you get booked to play the 40-year-old mom. Yeah, right. Yeah. Uh so now that I am BC, um, no, I'm sorry, that was BC before children. Now that I'm after children, I don't do as much uh on camera, but with the birth of our first child, I decided that the cost of daycare was too much. Oh yeah. Didn't make sense to have a full-time job. So we built out a studio in my basement, and that's when I started doing voiceover full-time. And after 10 years in voiceover, you start to, when you're in voiceover, you start to realize um what you're good at, what you like, what you're passionate about, you know, because there's so many different genres of voiceover.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

And what I realized was I could combine my passion for sports, because I'm a former college athlete, and my kids drain my bank account with their elite sport, this and their elite sport that why not combine that passion with voiceover? So I started to learn the art of promo. For those who are watching or listening, promo is what you hear when you're watching a TV network or you get a streaming ad on Netflix that says this Sunday on Dateline, you know, or tune in Friday to watch Roy McElroy. You know, that kind of stuff. But specifically because my timber is lower, I wanted to do male-dominated sports. So I spent five plus years perfecting my craft, paying coaches a lot of money, doing out-of-the-box marketing, and I was getting nothing. I was getting nowhere. So now I'm like 15 years in to voiceover, five plus years of focusing on this genre, and I can't even get an audition in this genre.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

So I'm talking with a LA agent, a woman, doing a workshop, because as we do, we learn. And I read for her and she goes, Oh, booked, booked. I go, No, I'm not, sister, I'm not booked. Let's talk about it because I'm not booked. Right. I'm not, like, I'm not getting anything. And so I told her what I've been doing. And she goes, It's not for a lack of talent, Christy. It's a lack for opportunity. You're a woman, and these opportunities don't exist in plethora, right? Yeah. In the same amount for women as they do for men. And I woke up the next day and I was really angry. And I thought to myself, well, I can either give this up, right? Just give it up. Like I just wasted five plus years of my life and a ton of money from my bank account. Or I could say, What do I have to lose? I could make a thing of it. And so I decided the very next day with the help of Brandon Miller, a fellow voiceover actor, to start a campaign called Building Doors. Uh, it was February 9th. So I had two and a half weeks until Women's History Month, and I was like, let's do it for Women's History Month.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Let's feature women all around the world revoicing scripts originally voiced for men. I love it. To show people that women belong in these spaces. You're not missing anything.

SPEAKER_01:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

The intention was to do a handful of posts, and that was it. And then it kind of turned into something, and now I'm almost two years in.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. It's such a great origin story and super relatable, I think, to a lot of our listeners, obviously, uh Building Doors folks and together digital folks, because yeah, life happens and it's either something that's happening to you or happening for you. And I feel like you were the kind of person that's just like, well, if this is gonna make this happen, I'm gonna make this for me. Like, even though it's a door in my face, I will just build a door. Yeah, right. I'll build my own damn door. And I love that so much. So were there any other particular obstacles that you faced breaking into sports sports voiceover specifically? Um, and maybe how did some of those challenges help shape building doors VO? Because it's, I mean, opportunity is obviously a big part of it. Is that the only part of it? Or were there other things that were barriers?

SPEAKER_03:

So, you know, for anyone in voiceover, and I think just anybody in any industry really, when you decide to pursue a certain avenue of your job, you have to be good at it, right? Yeah. You can't just say, Oh, I want to become a copywriter and you're a copywriter. No, you gotta go to school or you gotta go to training, you gotta workshops. And so that's what those five years that I did really focused on was making sure that I was ready to put myself out there. Yeah. Right. And so everyone I trained with, and I'd like to point this out, the majority of my coaches were men. Yeah. Okay, that's first and foremost. The majority of the coaches who are men said, Oh, Christy, opportunities are just, yeah, you trust me, you'll be fine. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then when I talked to the women in the industry, coaches or women who are actually getting these opportunities, they would say, Look, yeah, yeah, it is better. It's better in the sense that we've gone from zero opportunities to maybe one. Uh-huh. So, you know, it's improved. And what's so interesting, what's so interesting to me about that is and I I've talked about this before uh at the beginning of the campaign in year one, which is perspective to all the men that I had been working with, to all of the coaches, all of the people I had been talking to, yo, yeah, things are improving, things are improving. But to all the women, yeah, not so much. And so what I compare it to is if you're sitting sitting in a baseball stadium and 20 years ago, 30 years ago, it was imagine all the pink seats in the upper seats, right? The whole stadium is filled with pink seats, but the good seats are the blue seats, the men. Yeah, right. Yeah. So fast forward 20, 30 years, and the men are saying things are improving. The men are saying things are improving because now when they look to their left, there might be a woman somewhere in the row.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

When they look behind them, there might be a few pink seats behind them. So they see improvement. Right. But to women still sitting in the upper deck of the stadium, it's not. It really is.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. That's a great analogy, a good visual analogy. I love that. Uh so on that note, like with you know, breaking into more seats for women, more doors for women, whatever we want or need them to be, um, a lot of our members uh and our listeners are working to break into male-dominated spaces. Ironically, in marketing, I think it's more of there's a lot of women in marketing and communications because guess what? We're good at communicating. However, when you look at the top-tier jobs, you look at the C-suite, it is abysmal for women.

unknown:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, what do you feel like there are any uh strategies from your voiceover journey that has helped translate maybe into other industries is in a way to help people try to shift the gender balance? Because I do I love that idea, the campaign idea of like, let's just re-record all this and make it women. You know, are there other strategies, tactics, things that you have found effective that might even be industry agnostic?

SPEAKER_03:

So what I think I will start with the umbrella uh thought of women need to unite with other like-minded women to make the change because you're not gonna do it by yourself.

SPEAKER_02:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

I may have started this campaign, but I have a slew of like 40, 45 women who are door builders who have lent their voice and who, you know, help me market, who helped me brainstorm, who introduced me to people that can advance the mission. So I have this amazing team of women that I work with, but I would like to share a few stories of how women are doing it in other industries. So, for example, um, I have three to four Zoom calls a week talking to people, women and men, uh, in male-dominated genres of the world, of the working world, and I hear a lot of stories. And so in the insurance industry, I guess I didn't realize how male-dominated insurance was until I started talking to women in insurance. And listen, that that place is an HR nightmare. I will just tell you that much, that whole industry. So, one of the things a lot, there's a lot of HR conferences. That's where they meet with brokers, that's where they get deals done. And so, all throughout the year, insurance people are traveling to this city, that city, blase woo-woo. And it is always revolved around drinking, men, and bars.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

All I mean, that they might have a 10 a.m. happy hour. No joke. My friend did. My friend works in insurance and she had a 10 a.m. happy hour. Yeah, and she was like, Christy, I can't do it. And so someone in her industry, a woman, decided to have an 11 a.m. woman's tea.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And she invited all the women who were attending that conference to go to a women's tea. That action alone of putting all the women in that male-dominated industry together to swap stories, to share tips, that is building a door. That is what's going to cause more change. Now, let's get into another story, which is Big Ten, Big Ten college football, or just Big Ten college, big ten colleges. So I'm talking Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska. So the big 10 of college sports are D1 schools that have major, major brand recognition.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So one of, I'm not gonna say who, but one of those brands in the lower part of the top 10 hired hired a marketing firm to come in and do an analysis of how they could get up in the ranks of that top 10. What are we doing wrong? What can we improve? What do we need to do less of and more of? So this marketing firm was led by a middle-aged white man. They spent three months analyzing all of their departments. They meet in a conference room, and in that conference room is about 20 people. Only two of those are women. They're all men. This middle-aged white man sits at the conference room table, and the first words out of his mouth were based on our company's analysis, we believe the number one thing you can do to improve your standings in the Big Ten is to remove all women from positions of authority. They would be better served at home. Whoa. Now, you may think that's the wow moment. For me, for me, for me, it isn't. Because of the phone calls that I've had, I mean Zoom calls that I've had, yeah, that story is not unique at all. No, of course not. That story happens tenfold every day around the world.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Here's what made my jaw drop. Not one man. Not one man stood up and challenged what this man said. And the two women in the room wanted to, but now imagine put yourself, put yourself in that conference room and you're one of two women. Are you gonna stand up and say something to this firm that your brand, your job just paid millions to to make this analysis? No, you're not gonna say anything. And so what I think needs to happen so that more doors are built when you take these two stories is one, women need to create more space for women to support one another. So if there is no space, create the space.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And then in terms of the other story with the Big Ten, well-intended men need to feel empowered to know what to say and how to say it in moments like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

Because I know that in that room there were well-intended men.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know personally, I'm just saying I know out of 20 some men, they have daughters, they have sisters that you know, but they don't know how. And so the more well-intended men speak out against that kind of behavior and call it out, yeah, the less it'll happen. And those two things, just those two examples, are gonna cause more women to be in those rooms. It's gonna cause people to listen to them because when you gather women and you're all saying the same thing, they can't ignore you.

SPEAKER_00:

But if it's one woman, right, she's standing alone.

SPEAKER_03:

She's standing alone.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and that's such a great case in point and strategy for dealing with non-diverse spaces and giving voice, is oftentimes we think, oh, we just need more diverse voices in the room. No, actually, we just need the people with privilege to feel empowered to speak up. We often say we have to empower the women. Yes, but we also need to empower the well-intended men who feel like they are going to be shamed, blamed, ridiculed for speaking up and say, no, dude, you are okay to speak up. You are okay to use your privilege. Like, don't just say, don't just recognize you have privilege and have guilt about it. Own it and then use it. That will help to solve to solve that guilt. And I mean, I've had situations like that where an executive creative director, we were doing a pitch for a major restaurant chain. We worked our asses off on this, but we had a guy team and a gal team. And he pre came back. We didn't get to go to the pitch, even though we did all the work. And he sat there and presented our work to the agency and then was like naming all the guys and who did what on for that work. And then he's like, and then the girls did this. Did not even mention one of us by name. He just called us the girls. And I saw the faces of my team, and I'm like ready to just put my hands on their shoulders and be like, sit down, ladies. It's okay. I walked up to him immediately afterwards and I said, That was not cool.

SPEAKER_03:

No. What did he say? What did he say?

SPEAKER_00:

He's like, I'm not sexist, my dad's gay. I was like, I don't think you understand anything that I'm trying to explain to you. So I'm just going to stop right now.

SPEAKER_03:

And you know, I think too, Amy, these stories, these situations are an opportunity to educate. Some people want to learn.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, see, see, some people are open to it. And they're like, I hear it. I see it. And and then what's great is like some of them literally have gone on a CFO that I used to work with, literally started a whole nonprofit to help get more diverse students, like grants and scholarships get into advertising because I basically just started calling out all the bullshit I was seeing. And he was just willing to listen and then leverage his power and his privilege to pull. All that together, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. It's but that is such a good strategy, is I think, you know, if we have any guys listening today, and I know we've we've got Matt with us too, but I think that's one of the best pieces of advice you can give to a man, you know, is um if you hear a woman getting spoken over, if somebody starts to kind of take her idea and and say it in their own way, be like, that was a great idea that Chrissy just had. I agree with you, you know, Joe. Right. That's exactly what Chrissy just said. And you don't have to do it in like a totally dickish way, just like say it and state it plainly, and then people will start to see it. And then, yes, the same thing for women. I think there's too much still competition among women. And I think with your community, and definitely with our together digital community, I can speak for is like there is no competition. Right. We are going to support each other. There's more than enough room and success for all of us.

SPEAKER_03:

There we go.

SPEAKER_00:

And I no drama mama.

SPEAKER_03:

I I see I'm no Miss Cleo, but I see a business opportunity of a course to sell to women-tended men and companies. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Because again, we try to empower the women, and at the end of the day, we truly are empowered. It's the systems that hold us back. It's the systems and the bias and the things that are outside of our control, right? So stop. I mean, not that I'm saying I want to stop empowering women. I love it. But again, that only gets us so far. The systems and the people on the other side of things have to start to listen and change along with us. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I got a message shortly after I started the campaign from a I I won't say their name or anything, but they are well seated, I will say, in voiceover. Yeah. This woman is, you know, that people know her. Yeah. And she's in a position of uh influence. And she said, look, Christy, I applaud what you're doing, but in essence, I'm summarizing her message. Good luck. Yeah. Because you're fighting against systems that have been built for centuries. And I think you're fighting a losing battle. That's so heartbreaking. It is, but for me, I'm a very competitive person. Yeah. And I want to be able to say whether it's tomorrow, whether it's three or five or eight years from now, I told you so.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and it's because that there are still women out there in positions of power and privilege, right? We all have some to some degree that don't reach a hand back that are like, I work clawed my way here. I worked my way here. Why should I help anybody? Nobody helped me. And I'm like, that is not the mentality to have. Because here's the other thing, honey. You're going to become over 40. You're going to be over 50. And what's going to happen? You're going to be irrelevant all of a sudden. You aren't going to be the hottest thing around. And it's going to suck. And then you're going to have to look to the women and your peers around you or people that are even younger than you for help. And who's going to want to help you? Nobody, because you were nasty. You were nasty. Exactly. Nasty. Oh my goodness. It's such a fun conversation. All right. And then also enraging and you know empowering all at the same time. Let's see. My next question was uh oh, okay. Using data. I think that's an important right to challenge the media representation norms, which honestly probably not too hard to do, right? When you got a lot out there and you just listen, just listen to the radio guys, gals for the next 24 hours and tell us if you notice the discrepancy. What does data actually show, though, about gender representation and voiceover? And how do you use those numbers to create change?

SPEAKER_03:

So when I started the campaign, again, it was just supposed to be a month, a handful of posts. And so I immediately got response. I got response from women around the world. I was getting messages from women around the world saying, Oh my God, Christy, this is how I feel.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Christy, I feel the same way. And then I would get responses from men, which I knew, right? I was prepared for that whole shaboo. Um, and what I realized real quick was that I needed data. This isn't just Christy complaining that she doesn't get jobs, right? Um, this there it's rooted in in fact. And so I went in search of this, and there's not a lot because voiceover is a niche industry.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Then I'm trying to focus on a niche within a niche.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So there's no data, right? There's little to no data. So I decided just to go collect it myself. And so the first study I did, the first poll I did was within the voiceover community, and I had about 200 people respond, and it was pretty equal in terms of gender. So it was 46% men, and the rest were women. And what I discovered was that 73% of men polled said that they received five plus auditions for male-dominated sports promo a year. That only leaves 27% of their female counterparts to claim the same. So that day that data point really helped me at the beginning to prove no, women are not getting as many opportunities.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And so then I dug deeper and started to have a poll on our website and started to send it to advertising executives and creatives and people who are voice seekers, people who make the decision to hire voice to get a better sense of the kind of opportunities that are available. And also, um, you know, what would the general public be willing? Do they even notice when it's a male voice or a female voice? Sure. And so from that poll, I discovered that 74% of people polled say that they do notice if it's a male or female voice. Wow. Okay. So that's a that's a great, great data point, right? People notice. It's not just something that just is like, oh, whatever. Yeah. And then the next data point that I found fascinating is that over, I would say 30% of people polled said it doesn't matter to me if it's a male or female. Doesn't matter. So 70% said, yeah, it does matter to me. I'm gonna spend my money with a brand that is that exemplifies gender equality. That's great, right? That's a great data point. That's a lot, you know. If you're more gender inclusive, you're gonna get more money because 70% of people polled said yes. But to me, the gold is in that 30%. Because if 30% of the people on that poll say, eh, it doesn't matter, that's an opportunity for conversion. That is an opportunity for a brand to say, hey, that's untapped ads. That's that's untapped brand loyalty. Right. So if it doesn't matter either way, that's 30% of the population or of in my it was a little over 400 people that took this poll. That means I can sway them. That means if I use more women, it's not gonna be damaging. That way, if I use more women in front of and behind the camera, I'm I'm gonna tap into more money that I didn't have before. They're leaving, brands are leaving potentially millions and billions of dollars on the table by not including more women. When you take into account this simple equation that 83% of women globally control their finance, their family's finances. Yep. So when it comes to choosing the cell phone plan, the swag, the season tickets, all of those things, women do. So when you take the information I have from my poll, you combine it with simple data points about the power that women have with money, your brand could get more money. Now, some people say, Christy, why are you so focused on trying to get brands more money? Because that's what they listen to. Right. That's what they want. That's their goal. But guess what happens when brands start to do that? Women become more empowered in the economy. They get to spend their money where they want to spend it, which uplifts the brands that support women. And so I know that this is not something. While the equation is super simple to spell out, I know it's gonna take a long time before that happens. And so right now, I am trying to find a funding source to sponsor or pay for a study. And I don't want to get too much into it, but it's going to be some A-B testing of the same commercial for a male-dominated brand voiced by a man and voiced by a woman. And I want to see the outcomes of this because if I can have a third party, a professional third party, let me know the real deal, right? Let me know where the connection points are. What because for example, did you know? Girl, I could talk forever. Did you know that there was a a company, an audio data collection company that did a study over a year to determine what voice the general public likes to hear from the most? Can you guess? And I'm turn in terms of gender and race. Okay. Guess, guess which, after a year of study and surveys and all these ads that they had people listen to of all these different races and genders, which voice resonated the most? I don't know why, but I think black women. You are right!

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's black women. By and large, people prefer to listen to a black woman over any other they wouldn't give voices. They resonate emotionally, they remember there's a recall that they remember what the ad was for. And you just take that data point alone, right? Imput it with the rest of the so there's just a huge case to be made, and no one else is making it. And I think this is the huge opportunity for building doors to make it and to create street strategic partnerships to really blast it out. And so that's why I take any opportunity I have to be on podcasts like yours and connect with women in digital spaces or even creative spaces. That because the more I can get in front of those women who have seats at the table, yes, the more apt they are to share this data, which I hope to get from this company, right? Even more data than I already have. Because the reason I know about that black woman stat is this. I was speaking with an audio engineer. He said that he attended the conference where they released that study. Two weeks later, he was in a conference room with a client and a brand, and they were discussing who should voice it, who should voice this commercial. They were going back and forth, back and forth, and so he piped up. And he said, Well, at this conference I was just at, they said a black they ended up hiring a black woman because of what he said. Yeah. There's power in data. There's power in having a third party, like an audio collection firm, or whether it be from CNN, you know, whatever, whatever, you know, there's power in that. And so I've if we take it back to the the first question, right? When we have women creating more spaces for women to be women within these male-dominated genres, like the tea time that we talked about. When we talk about empowering well and well-intended men to speak up and how to do it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And then you take it and you give them data points to share. Yep. It takes away, this is my opinion, to this is fact.

SPEAKER_00:

Did you know? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I think data is a really important part of validation. But then also, I've been doing research for a book I'm writing about closing the networking gap for women because networking is so fraught with so many landmines, like drinking and late nights and all these things that just sound terrifying to us. Golf course, good time for other guys, right? Um, is that um women don't rise through the ranks based on um getting leadership opportunities, positions, leading projects, or even having more time with executives on, like said golf course. They actually get more opportunities by third-party referral. So another ally tip, like, or even women speaking up for other women, um, yeah, you if you make the recommendation for a woman, she is that much more likely to get the role or the opportunity. Um, and so yes, people who have positions of power and authority, like you have to speak those names. You have to bring them into the space. And this is what I loved so much about what you do, Christy, is I I mean, before this, um, some of you may or may not know I was a creative director for like Folgers and Pringles and Fabreze and Ford and all these different brands. And it was always very important to me from a casting standpoint. As a creative director, I was deciding the talent. I was the one putting forward the talent. And, you know, the messages not only need to be able to resonate with your audience, but they need to be able to see themselves in that space. And so, yeah, creative directors, if you're listening, start paying more attention to how you're casting and who you're casting. Um, it's such a small but very significant opportunity that you have to have an impact.

SPEAKER_03:

And Amy, uh, do you still stay in contact with your creative director, colleagues, network, and friends?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I'd be interested uh what their stance is and what they see in trends. Um just curious.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Maybe we can get together after this and do a little poly poll.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. We love a good poll, we love a data, digital marketers. That's that's what we live for. That and a good spreadsheet. Uh or freaks in the sheets, as we like to say. Uh all right. So building doors view, you're creating opportunities for women in voiceover, as we've clearly determined. Walk us through how the organization works and what are some tangible doors that you've opened for other women.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh yeah, so let's talk about the organization. In my head, I'm going to close my eye because I'm a perimenopause and I can't think unless I have my eyes closed. I feel you. Oh my gosh. So when I close my eyes and I think about this organizational chart, um Building Doors, yes, I created it, but I couldn't have created it without Brandon Miller. I often use him. He's a fellow voice actor and a creative. He creates a lot of content. And so I lean on him a lot. Um, Sandy Harrison Cooksie is someone who reached out to me early in the campaign and basically designated herself as someone a board of director. I was like, okay, fine. Let's go. And then there are door builders. So they are women who voice for me, who've who volunteer to lend their voice and time um to revoice a script. There are global builders. I have a global builder evangelizing the mission on the ground in Australia, the UK, and Egypt. Love it. And uh then the general public and our supporters who uh engage with our content and spread awareness through sharing. Um and I had a great direct message on LinkedIn yesterday, which was a woman who applied to be a 2026 door builder. She did not get in. However, she auditioned for a job with a company that typically only hires men. She ended up getting the job because the producer threw in a few women. She got the job. And when she got the job, she was like, Oh, I thought this was for men only. Did you do this because of building doors? And they're like, No, what's building doors? And so that opened an entire new avenue of conversation for this woman to establish herself with this company, not as a voice actor, but as an advocate for equality. And so she told them all about building doors. And so now when this woman reaches out again, they're not gonna be like, oh, she's selling herself, she's selling herself. She wants to talk about something else, something that maybe we could benefit from. That's one story. And then, okay, I talked about how it's organized, but then how we open up doors for other women, I believe that story right there is empowering a woman to take a mission, use it to not sell herself, and use it to create, right? So that's one way she's out we're creating a way for women to open a door by using the mission. And she's not even a door builder and she's doing it, right? Um, one of the first ways that it really clicked for me was three months into the campaign, there was a woman who voiced a spot for Honda Sport. She re-voiced it. It was originally voiced by a man. She has a higher tone, she's young, she's gorgeous, has a beautiful smile. And she reached out to me and she said, Christy, someone heard my reel. Someone saw my reel for Honda.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You know why they saw it? Because all 40 some of the women pushed like and they shared it to their networks. So now that puts that woman's voice and image up higher, yeah. Uh in front of millions more eyes and ears than we have been, right? Yeah, I love it. So because all the women banded together and did this, someone, she doesn't know who, saw this reel, forwarded it to an ad agency in Florida. That ad agency then reached out to that woman, the door builder, and hired her to voice a slew of Honda spots. Yes. We are not an agency. We are not a pay-to-play. I'm not in the business of getting jobs for women. I'm advancing the mission. However, that right there shows the power of what happens when women come together and support other women. Yes, 100%. So that opened a door for that woman, right? I will share one more story. There are a couple door builders, uh, my Australia door builder, my Egyptian door builder, and several here in the US, who have taken what we're doing with building doors. And they're they've watched, they're learning uh how we do things and they're applying it to their own businesses. So, for example, there's one door builder, and I believe she's here, uh, Marion Mills. She's super passionate about mental health. Yeah. And guess what? Women were multifaceted, and we can have several streams of income, and we can do more than just one thing. And so she used Building Doors as the example and is now creating her own brand, her another brand uh called Depression Proof Your Life. She hosts weekly lives where she interviews people about how mental health impacts their business, how it impacts their personal life, how they've gotten through it, right? And so she's using the template of what Building Doors has done to do that for herself.

SPEAKER_01:

That's great.

SPEAKER_03:

Then the woman in Australia, she is creating a ton of her own reels where she re-voices ads in Australia, you know, that were originally voiced by, and she has a whole page on her website of them. That has allowed her to become a teacher at a voiceover school in uh Perth, Australia. It has allowed her to get connected to major, major voice seekers at major TV stations down there. So I just think that there's I didn't realize when I started it what I was doing. Yeah. But as it's grown, I think that I think that the best thing that Building Doors has done is to be able to empower other women to take this and use it to better themselves, better their business, and have something else to talk about other than the fact that they're a voiceover actor.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. No, absolutely. I agree. It's like the benefit of the benefit that you just don't consider going in. Um, I feel that way with Together Digital, the friendships, like the deep, deep friendships that kind of transition life and career and everything else is so important. Um, but there are tangible, real results where they're building businesses together or they're getting inspired by one another, or they're helping grow each other's client base. It's just incredible. There's so much power in when we work together versus trying to work against each other, like we both very much seem to believe and work through. I love it. And then what is her name, Marion?

SPEAKER_03:

I think she's here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Um, it feels like you should come and be on that podcast too. We talk about mental health a lot. And I such a right now, and ever since COVID in the wintertime too, man, it's rough. This is a rough time of year. So yeah, you can email me, Marion Amy at togetherindigital.com, and we'll get you the form over and you can hop on. We love, love, love talking about all the things because we are whole ass humans. And I know companies will say, Oh, you can come to work and be whole. No, it's We're not a family. We don't pay family to come to see us every day. Um, it's a job. And so these kinds of communities that we're all working to create, um, you know, uh that's that's what's needed. I don't think that's a problem for companies to solve as much as I know that they would like to. It ain't gonna happen. Anyhow, slight tangent. All right, back to the next question. Uh for women who in digital who want to amplify their voices, whether that be literally or figuratively, what is maybe the first step that they should look at taking?

SPEAKER_03:

They need to find more women who believe what they believe in.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah. I love that answer.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, because if you think about it, um let's talk about Marion again. She's passionate about mental health. When she starts to put herself out there as a position of authority, that she's passionate about mental health, she's connected to these mental health professionals. Other people are gonna be like, oh God, Marion, I feel the same way.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And remember at the beginning of our conversation, I said that when I first started within two weeks, I was receiving emails from women around the world.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

If you just put yourself out, you know what? I'm frustrated with the fact that these damn staff meetings are an hour and it could have been an email.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

You know what's gonna happen when other women get along? They're gonna say, let's create a system. Because that's what women, that's what women do.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what we do. We see a problem, we make it better.

SPEAKER_03:

And so then that's gonna change, you know, that causes change, right? You have to find your community, but you're not gonna find your community unless you speak up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, exactly. That that and it's so scary at first, right? I think people feel like they have to I have to find my voice, I have to craft it, I have to hone it, I have to perfect it. It's like, no, please actually don't like be vulnerable, do it scared, because that is so much more relatable than overly poised and prop polished and processed, because people can feel that it doesn't feel authentic, it doesn't feel relatable. So yeah, and I think I don't know, maybe you've always been outspoken, Christy. I get the sense maybe this is like who you've always been. No, yes, maybe, but I guess that's my follow-up question. Like for women who don't feel like they have a strong voice, like yeah, how do you how do you begin to do that?

SPEAKER_03:

So I will say this I could not have done building doors in my 20s or my 30s.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh-huh. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I wasn't secure enough in myself and who I am. I was too worried about what other people would think about me. And let's be real, real. I literally called Brandon and I was on video and I would have my finger on the post button for the first post.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Like, I can't do it. Because there are, and I'm sure this is like this in other industries, but in the voiceover industry uh especially, you know, there are anointed gatekeepers, self-anointed gatekeepers, right? And heaven forbid one of those anointed self, you know, gatekeepers doesn't agree with what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

You're you're blacklisted, right? You're you're you're done. You're out. So I'm sitting there like, oh, do I do it?

SPEAKER_02:

Do I do it? Oh my god, do I knew it?

SPEAKER_03:

And Brandon was like, what do you have to lose at this point?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Don't forget how angry you were when you woke up that day and called me and were like, what am I doing? And I was like, you know what? You're right. At the end of the day, what's gonna happen?

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

It's not like I'm not gonna lose a job because I'm not getting any jobs today. So why, so why not just do it, right? That's so true. I would say to someone who uh and and we talk a lot about this in the voiceover industry about the fact that many creatives are introverts. They're not extrovert extroverts. 100%, right? They don't, they don't, they much and let's see be even deeper. I'm in a padded room talking to myself most days, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Like I'm I'm a right now, I thought I was looking good, but this darn lightning, I gotta get my lighting right. But my point is that I think tiny, tiny incremental steps is what it takes. I had a call before this with a door builder. Um, and I know that she is, she she's got great ideas, she can really make an impact uh with the stuff that she's passionate about, but she's a little, you know, shy. She does, she's a little shy. And so to answer your question, I think it's important that those, if you are a little shy, yeah, look for an accountability partner. Look for somebody who's gonna hold your feet to the fire and help you push you to say, like I did when I called Brandon. And he's like, just put the button, put the button, you know. So just do it, just do it, you know. Um, and I think also too to have validation, to have someone else, even more than one person, to validate and say, no, this really is helpful. You've got something here. Yes, let's schedule the post, let's press it together. I'll show up, I'll comment, I'll share. All of that I think gives people confidence.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, I would agree. Um, one of my good friends, Lakretia, always says, have all of the confidence of a mediocre white man named Chad.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. Chad, Chad gets way too much for being mediocre.

SPEAKER_00:

They do. And they like somebody posted in the chat, like they just do it anyways, you know. And we were at an event for Together Digital doing our ask and give exchange. And, you know, I politely asked the gentleman to hold their comments or questions until the end. Let the women speak first. And they were absolutely fine to do that because they are great guys. And at the end, one of the other pieces of advice that stuck with all of us was he was like, ask for the no. Just ask for the no. Like, why don't just go and ask for it because the the worst you can get is a no.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I see. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I was like, all right, okay. And so sometimes I think we just get so caught up in the analysis paralysis and perfectionism that it's like we don't we don't we don't learn by doing it right the first time. We learn by falling on our face and getting back up. Like you have to fail to learn, right? You have to do it scared to learn to be brave. It's just the only way it's ever gonna work.

SPEAKER_03:

And I will say that when I look back now, if I didn't have that window where, oh, Women's History Month is in two and a half weeks, it's a perfect time to launch. I gotta do it, I gotta do it. I'll miss an opportunity. If that didn't happen, I probably would have overthought it to the point where I never would have done it.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. It's such a good opportunity. Don't let it go by. Don't sabotage yourself, right? Like, yeah, don't sabotage yourself. All right. Uh let's see. You've mentioned using storytelling alongside data to drive change, which obviously is super important, right? We're hardwired for stories, and um, that's what we love about people is their stories. How do you combine these two um elements effectively when advocating for equality?

SPEAKER_03:

So the data and the storytelling, for example, when I told you that Big Ten story, your jaw dropped. Yeah. You'll never forget that Big Ten story.

SPEAKER_00:

I was flipping, I'm gonna flip a table.

SPEAKER_03:

And then when I share data points, like uh I have volunteers across the United States who help me collect data at major sporting events, broadcasts. And so last year, the Super Bowl, in fact, I'm all quiz you. You probably already know because we've talked, but if you if you already know it, then tell me. But last year's Super Bowl, the 2025 Super Bowl broadcast, what percentage of ads were voiced by men? Do you think it was A, 60%, uh-huh, B, 78%, uh-huh, C, 85%, or D, none of the above?

SPEAKER_00:

I want to say I feel like 78%, but I could be wrong. It was a while when we spoke. It's 85%. 85%. I knew it. I see a second guess myself. 75%.

SPEAKER_03:

85% of all the ads in the Super Bowl were voiced by men, and those are male-dominated genres that choose to spend millions in ad spend for that. Yet, yet, the latest stat was 47% of the fan base of the NFL are female.

SPEAKER_00:

It's women, yeah. We're showing up to the games, we're wearing the gear.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you see how the equation doesn't cope you? When I pitch building doors, when I get on these calls and I evangelize building doors and I try to expand the network and extra and expand the mission, when I have speaking opportunities, in-person speaking opportunities, I use a combination of data and stories to make the lasting impact. Because when you take a stat like that and you combine it with the Big Ten story, when you take the insurance story and you combine it with the equation that I got from my 400-person poll, those things are powerful. And they leave a mark so that when because I will tell you, the first year of building doors, the number one thing that people said during meetings was, I had no idea. But now that you say that, I realize it. The number two thing is that they would send me a DM or an email and saying, Christy, I just watched XYZ sporting event, and you're right. I only heard two women on the an entire broadcast. So people don't realize it until it's pointed out.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. And then they can't unsee it, right? I think I can't see it after.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That was kind of the beginning of my journey and all of this was that I, a male boss of mine, sent me to the 3% conference, which at the time was um started by Kat Gordon in San Francisco, and it was all around the fact that only three percent of creative directors were women. When 83% are doing the buying, only three percent are creating the messages that I wow.

SPEAKER_03:

Three percent.

SPEAKER_00:

Three percent. It's it's closer to 15 to 20% now. That was in 2012 when it started, but obviously still nowhere near the 80% it ought to be. And you know, I I got to see Cindy Gallup speak. If you have if you don't follow her on LinkedIn, you really should and Instagram. She's amazing. Um, but she used to say she's the Michael Bay of marketing because she likes to blow shit up. Uh and she was always like, You if you can't see it, you can't be it, um, which is very, very true. Um, and then also I think you know, another phrase that comes up often for me is like fish don't see water, we don't see air. Right? Like we swim in these waters and we don't we don't recognize, we don't see the microaggressions always, especially if they're not directed at us. We don't see the inequities or inopportunities or lack of opportunities because we just think that's normal. And then once you see it, you can unsee it. So I think it is so important. I think that's why the combination of stories and data is important because data gets the jaws to drop it, makes it factual, but stories tug at the heart. And those are the things that stay with you ultimately. You might not be able to remember the exact stat, but you're gonna remember the story for sure.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I love it. All right. Last question before we move on to the power round. Looking ahead, what needs to happen for gender equity and voiceover in media to become the norm rather than the exception? And where do you see the biggest opportunities for change?

SPEAKER_03:

So if I were a brand, right? Um, I think brands need to understand what they're missing by not including the people who have the money. The people who control the decisions with the money, they're missing a huge oper huge opportunity. Am I trying to say everything should be voiced by a woman or everything should no, I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is um brands are missing out on potentially millions of dollars by not including more women, and the way that they can change that is by voice. You can start to change that by voice. Voice is a small puzzle piece to something much larger, right? Yeah, because when girls and what okay, story time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

My my daughter it plays in two sports, golf and flag football, and she's pretty decent at both. But she's probably gonna play golf in college, and so she's 12 and she needed a new pair of golf shoes. My daughter likes ones with spikes, okay? So we go to golf galaxy and we go to the shoes, and luckily she wears a women's size. So we go to golf galaxy, and there's like just rows and rows of of golf shoes, and a whole wall, too. Yes. So we go there. Turns out there's only two bays of women's golf shoes. Yeah, there's only like 10 on the wall, and out of all of those, which is about 40 pairs, only one had cleats. I mean a spikes.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh. Only one there's your option right there.

SPEAKER_03:

That's right. So now let's dig deeper. Not only did my daughter go to Golf Galaxy and only see one option for her, but then she can't watch women play on TV. There are no TV broadcasts of professional women golfers playing in their tournaments. Look at what and he and I will say, since then, so that was last year, the PGA has a new head guy and he believes in women, and he has now decided that in 2026 they are going to start broadcasting the women's majors, which is great. So now my daughter can tune in and see, right? But when you think about it, my daughter in golf cannot go purchase a Nellie Corta glove. Nellie Korta is the number one female golfer in the world. She cannot buy a glove, she cannot buy clubs, she cannot buy a clubhead, she cannot buy a polo. But uh Norman, uh his last name's Norman, uh, by the way, has been retired for like 30-something years. You can go buy his shirts with the darn shirt on it.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So, to answer your question, to open more doors, I think brands are missing a huge opportunity uh in just providing things for little girls to hear and see.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's number one.

SPEAKER_03:

And in voiceover, um, I have a great story of a talent agency that I met with that are in the UK. They're called Foxy Tongue. And I met with them because a door builder who is signed with them called them, talked about building doors, and said, You should talk to Christy. We talked. And she asked me, they asked me, these two ladies asked me, they said, Well, how can we do it? And I said, When they ask for only men, throw in some women. They literally did that the next day.

SPEAKER_00:

Love it.

SPEAKER_03:

They literally threw in three women the next day for an audition that they got, right? Yeah. So I think that there's responsibility within the voiceover industry, if you are sitting in a position like that, to do tiny, and again, these tiny little micro steps is going to create a ripple.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

And then that's for VO. VO is creating the ripple, right? Then when copywriters, producers, filmmakers, and then that turns into a wave.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

And then those waves, after a decade or two, will turn into tsunamis, and then tsunamis make permanent change.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. I love that answer so much. And you got exactly to what I was thinking is that I think sometimes we think activism is some big, huge effort that takes so much time, and it's there's it's microactivism, it's speaking up, it's showing up in those small ways, and knowing that that even that matters and that counts. Love that answer. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

And I hope that I hope, and my my my hope is that as Building Doors continues, yeah, that other industries will see what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

And say, Oh, I'm an insurance, I can do what they did. Let me look at their model and do it here. Oh, I'm an automotive, or I'm in tech, or I'm in this, let me let me copy and paste what building doors is doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Actually, yes.

SPEAKER_03:

That's what I would love to see.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep, I agree. I agree. Some people will come to me and be like, oh, so-and-so starting this group and it's for women, and is she stealing from together? I'm like, no, no. Oh my god. Creating more space and more opportunities for women. And I'm never going to be in competition with another women's organization. Never have, never will be. That's right. Um, because yeah, we've got a lot of work to do and a lot of people to uplift and educate. So it takes all of us. All right. I'm gonna try to do a couple really quickly power on questions. And then again, you've been getting so much. Your people are great. So much love in the chat. It's so good to see. I have read all of it.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh my gosh, they're you know, I told them to come on because I wanted them to not only, you know, get a refresher of what building doors is, but also um, because I wanted them to be introduced to your community. And I know that you said it's at the end of the year and not many, you know, people tune in, but I wanted them to kind of network with door members. So I know that there's not a ton of your members uh in the chat, but if uh the build the door builders wanted to get in touch with people, how would they do that?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh-huh. Well, they can go to the website togetherindigital.com. They can connect with me on LinkedIn. I am always there. If there's a particular type of person within the industry, whether they're creative, account, brand side, anything like that, like I am always happy.

SPEAKER_03:

Love connecting people.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yay!

SPEAKER_03:

So that's awesome. Thank you for that. Thank you. I really appreciate that because I feel like it's this uh your forum and your community is a great way for voice seekers to kind of introduce not only the mission of building doors, but themselves. Yeah. And I really appreciate you opening your network to them. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's my pleasure. Um, because yeah, it makes it better and easier for for everyone. Yeah, this is end of year and end of quarter. So they're they're all tails on fire hoping and praying they don't have to work all next week. So, you know, ages away. I don't miss it. I don't miss it. Uh all right. What is the most surprising brand or project that you voiced that people wouldn't have expected?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh I voiced three chickens.

SPEAKER_00:

Wait, how did they sound?

SPEAKER_03:

I am not a character voice, like, I don't do animation create different characters for games or anything. So when a client reached out to me and said, Look, we have an egg producer, an egg brand, okay, and they're doing this bit with three chickens. Okay. And I do all of their stuff anyway. So could you just do it? And I'm like, Yeah, sure, no problem. Fake it till you make it. So I got on with a coach and I was like, let's discuss these chickens. And one chicken was very posh, and I imagined her having like a um a row of pearls around her, and she was like the snooty one. And so we created, you know, different was it great? No, it wasn't my best work, I'll tell you that. But it was fun. Also, I have a national campaign coming out soon where I am the voice of IBS. So that's great.

SPEAKER_00:

That's awesome. That kind of takes me back to friends. Enjoy being the face of VD. Yeah. Uh, I'm the voice of IBS. I feel like you need to get a t-shirt made for that. All right. Finish this sentence. Building your own door means.

SPEAKER_03:

Building it big enough for everyone.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I love it. Good answer. Good answer. Snaps for that. Best advice you'd give your younger self starting out in voiceover.

SPEAKER_03:

Be yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, ma'am. I love that. Um, thank God for being older than 40. I feel like it's hell with all of it. Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Just real quick, real quick. Did you know I looked up there's a study that says that when women are in perimenopause in their brains, there's a section that is all for nurturing and care. In perimenopause, it's literally switched off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh. Thank you. A break. Let's go. That's the one thing I'm looking forward to in perimenopause. Not the insomnia, not the brain fong, not the fatigue, not the other things. But yeah. Oh, you're getting a t shirt. It's happening. You might get one or two. And then I like, oh yeah. Um, I mean a care club. Yes. Have you seen her?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I love her.

SPEAKER_00:

She's amazing. And I am so happy for her because I know she just started it because she just wanted to do it. And now she's got she's probably that's probably all she does full time. All right, last question, and then we will wrap it up. Although y'all have been a blast, we should do this again. Um, one thing people get wrong about the voiceover industry hiring AI isn't cheaper. Thank you. Thank you. And it's not gonna be as good. I'm just gonna tell you all that from a creative director standpoint.

SPEAKER_03:

Just don't need to correct hire human. Hire human. AI AI is not the answer.

SPEAKER_00:

No, not in this case. I don't hate all AI, but I think in this instance, I am 100% behind you. All right, ladies. Well, this has been a blast. Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you. Thank you so much. No, my pleasure for sharing your voice, for sharing your experience, for creating space for others. Um, you're just like we're kindred spirits all over here. So really loved having you on. And thank you to all of your door builders as well for joining us.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, thank you, door builders.

SPEAKER_00:

And thank you for the offer to connect. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Yeah. TDM members, where should they go when they're listening to this? Um, because a lot of them are probably going to be listening to it over their holiday break if they get one. Um, where's the best place to either reach you or learn about uh door builders?

SPEAKER_03:

So our our website is buildingdoorsvo.com. We are on most socials at buildingdoors vo. Okay. And I'm on LinkedIn as Christy Harse. Feel free to reach out. I am always, always up for a conversation. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. All right, Christy. Well, thank you so much. This has been a great last episode of our third season as we're wrapping up the year. Can't believe that. We're also probably coming on close to 200 episodes, which is wow.

SPEAKER_03:

Congrats.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, definitely take a listen, look at some of our past episodes, give us five stars, give us a review. We'd love that if you could do that. Um, but yeah, until next year, everyone. We love you. Thank you for listening. And until next time, keep asking, keep giving, and keep growing. Take care, everyone.

SPEAKER_01:

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Amy Vaughan

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