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Voices Connects The Biggest And Most Beloved Brands With Professional Freelance Talent

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Below is our recent interview with David Ciccarelli, Chief Executive Officer at Voices

Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Voices?

A: Voices is the #1 creative freelance marketplace, connecting the biggest and most beloved brands with professional freelance talent to bring their projects to life since 2005. Headquartered in London, Canada, Voices helps match clients with voice over, music, audio production, and translation professionals in over 160 countries and 100+ languages and dialects. To post a job for free, you can visit www.voices.com/hire.

Q: Voices recently made the switch from voice over marketplace to creative services marketplace. Can you tell us a little more about that?

A: Absolutely. For the last 15 years, Voices has been the world’s destination for all things voice over. More recently, our online platform has expanded to become the leading creative services marketplace, meaning that in addition to voice over, businesses of any size can now hire freelance talent in three new categories: translation, audio production, and music composition. This means buyers can now post a job, at no cost, for a specific skill and complete more of their creative project needs in one place.

This expansion of services is a direct response to the tremendous shifts in the gig economy—both currently and pre-pandemic—and will help freelance talent and brands alike excel in a working world that is becoming increasingly freelance-focused.

As time went on, we noticed that more and more of our clients had creative needs that went beyond solely voice over. We always seek to be proactive and find the best solution for both sides of our marketplace, which led us to a creative services expansion. With additional services being offered, more professional talent are able to offer their skills while clients are able to source more of their outstanding creative project needs reliably and securely using the Voices platform.

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Q: Can you give us more insights into your services?

A: First and foremost, the Voices platform ensures equitable treatment and experiences for both talent and clients. The challenges that have been historically associated with freelancing or utilizing freelancers in business strategy—such as not getting paid for your work or not receiving what you paid for—are mitigated by our secure platform, our clear policies, and our proprietary SurePay™ payment protection service. Because we so greatly value both sides of our marketplace, we actively work to ascertain that everyone involved with the Voices platform can rely on having a safe, secure, reliable experience.

As for the process itself, it’s simple. Freelancers on the Voices platform are able to showcase a portfolio of their work on their profiles. Think of it as an online resume—the more up-to-date and complete it is, the better the chance of securing a job. Voices makes it easy for talent to highlight their work and skills, offering a variety of memberships for freelance talent to choose from based on their needs and goals:

Guest ($0)
Ideal for aspiring and established freelance creative talent looking to build a presence, promote their skills, and be discovered on the Voices marketplace.

Premium ($499/year)
Ideal for professional freelance creative talent looking for everything needed to manage and grow their business, including full access to jobs that match their skills.

Platinum ($2,999/year)
Our exclusive, invite-only membership tier, ideal for top professional and veteran talent with over 100 completed jobs on the Voices marketplace.

To make it easy for clients—or buyers—to identify the right fit for their needs, profiles are searchable by keyword, location, and rating. Buyers can either invite an individual freelancer to reply to a job or post a job to the marketplace for free, allowing freelancers to reply with a proposal including a sample of their work, a quote, and what’s included in the quote, such as revisions, etc.

Once a job has been posted and the client has offered the job to the talent, the contract is established. All communication regarding the job occurs on the Voices platform, meaning that everything is above board and visible to the Voices team. Our aforementioned SurePay™ service is essentially an escrow service, meaning that the client makes the payment and it’s held securely until the talent delivers the finished product to the client’s satisfaction.

This way, the possibility of not getting paid for services rendered or not receiving quality services for the agreed-upon price is eliminated and both parties can enjoy peace of mind. This process has been used by tens of thousands of clients to successfully complete hundreds of thousands of jobs.

We also offer both talent and clients ongoing, hands-on support via the Voices team. Dedicated Account Managers and Client Support Specialists are always available to assist with any questions or concerns, because creating an excellent experience is a top priority.

Q: What can we expect from Voices in the next 6 months? What are your plans?

A: One of the many things we learned in 2020 is that the future is unpredictable and we need to remain flexible and ready to pivot.

For 15 years, Voices was the leading voice over marketplace. The leap from voice over marketplace to creative services marketplace was a direct result of the shifts we’re seeing in the freelance economy. We wanted to create a platform where both talent and brands were able to innovate and set themselves up for future success. Providing more diverse skill offerings means more options for brands when it comes to completing their creative projects and more work opportunities for professional freelance talent.

As the future continues to unfold, we’ll keep analyzing and researching what is needed to provide both sides of our marketplace with excellent experiences and fantastic opportunities. We’re excited to be delving into this new chapter, broadening the scope of work that is able to be done on our marketplace.

It should be said that, while we’ve been spurred to create additional contingency plans thanks to the pandemic, we’ve also planned for the best—a successful year in 2022 with ambitious growth targets. Our team is working towards another record-breaking year!

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Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?

A: Though we service clients and talent across the globe, Voices started out as a small, locally-owned, husband-and-wife Canadian business whose concept was scrawled on a paper napkin. When we started Voices, we knew that we wanted to create a space in which content could be created that was approachable for kids and people of all ages. We still hold onto the E for Everyone values we did at the beginning of our journey, and that helps guide us in our day-to-day operations and our Vision, Mission, and Values.

For a little more context on our backstory, when I graduated from the Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology, I started a little recording studio. I was fortunate enough to be featured in the Business London Magazine—on my birthday, of all days—and my now Mother-In-Law cut out the newspaper clipping for my now wife, Stephanie. Stephanie is a trained singer and her mother thought it would be a good idea for her to record her repertoire at my studio, so that’s what we did.

Being from Thunder Bay, Ontario, I didn’t know many people in the city of London, so when I was approached by businesses looking for a female voice to do voice over for their advertisements, I thought to myself: “I know one girl in London, and that’s Stephanie.” She agreed to do the voice over work, and eventually we got married, had four beautiful kids, and transitioned the recording studio into the online freelance marketplace that Voices now is.

The fact that we had a new, young family helped direct us to our E for Everyone approach, and we’re grateful to have built a successful business and team that allows us to operate authentically and in a way that creates a welcoming space for all.

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