Etienne A. Gibbs, Internet Safety Advocate and Educator  

Today's Tactics, Techniques, and Tips!

As Voicey Award finalists, my guest today, Dana Detrick-Clark, along with her husband, work with educators, advertisers, and motivators who struggle with lackluster audio solutions and would like to hear the highest quality translation of their vision!

"In our new music reality, the record labels aren't major or independent—they're interdependent. The label, the artists, the listener, all coming together to create nothing short of musical bliss. This creates more than music – it creates an experience." www.SeriousVanity.com/

What sets them apart from other production studios is that they provide seriously good audio, specifically honed to fit each client's individual needs. As a result, their clients receive high quality solutions that are perfect in content, speed, and price.

Question 1.  What do you do to ensure creating a 'safe' experience for your customers?

Answer: When it comes to selling CDs via our record label, we use well-respected, well-known pay sources like PayPal, or the well-known CD distributor, CD Baby, to let our customers know that we put their peace-of-mind first. We've used other 'middle men' in the past, but we've not found the experiences to be easy and comfortable enough for our buyers to continue. 

For downloads, since this is a new area for us, we wanted to give some smaller companies a try before taking it to our customers, but we've found nothing yet as secure and trustworthy as either selling downloads via CD Baby, which has processes and procedures already in place, or selling directly from our site.  

To make sure they LIKE our music and are happy with their purchases, we create a dynamic experience in which they don't have to wait for their music.  After they buy, even if a CD is being shipped, we make sure they can listen while it's 'en route' by creating a custom page just for them with an embedded player that hosts 96K mp3s of the songs they just bought.  This keeps illegal downloading or trading away, while at the same time makes them very happy customers!

Question 2.  How do you create this same experience for your studio clients?

Answer: Since most of what we do is create content as contractors, we make the experience as linear as possible, by creating safe ftp sites for our clients to retrieve their audios. We're hosted by the same company that founded CD Baby, so we know our site is secure and reliable.

We guarantee our work, so that our job is not done until our client is happy! We've never regretted doing this.

We're also always happy to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements, so our clients know their work is safe with us from competitors!

Question 3. What other 'physical' safety precautions do you take for your CD buyers?

Answer:  We aim to keep our shipping costs as low as possible for our buyers, but we try to include options, such as confirmation and insurance, so our buyers will know they're not risking a money loss when they buy from us, no matter what happens to their purchase when it's out of our hands.

Question 4. How do you create a safe 'physical' experience for your studio clients?

Answer: When it comes to their audios, our clients can consider us their 'off-site' storage. We keep multiple copies of each project's files (on hard disk and CDs), so at any time they can come back to us to either alter their files, or give them extra copies. These are all stored safely by us on site.  We also provide multiple copies of the 'hard' versions of their finished products (such as in the case of CD masters--we provide them with the master, and a backup copy). 

Question 5. How do you ensure your own safety with payment from buyers?

Answer: The same procedures that make it safer for our buyers, make it safer for us, too! By using well-respected, industry standard pay methods, we're able to securely accept their payments for CDs or downloads, thus making the process equally safe for us should any returns, charge-backs, or other problems occur.

Question 6. How do you ensure payment safety from studio clients?

Answer: The main safety step for client payment we take is in doing our best on their projects and communicating well with them. When you give a client what they want, and are upfront with them, they have trust in putting their hard-earned money in your hands. 

When we work directly with clients who have found us via referrals or our site, we make sure before we begin working that terms are in place, so both parties understand exactly what the expected outcome is. Most clients have no problem paying 1/2 of their fee upfront, and the only cases where this does not happen is when there is another payment method in place (such as a NET agreement or if third parties are involved). 

For cases where we are working through a third party site, we utilize any Escrow payment system that site may have established.  It gives both us AND the client the security that we're going to fulfill our roles.

For our return clients, which we've had many, the payment process is always an easy one, and many feel comfortable paying completely upfront or receiving invoice at the time the job is started. They know we'll come through for them, and we know any client we continue working with is one of integrity!

Question 7. What steps do you take to secure your intellectual property?

Answer: Since our business does predominantly deal with intellectual property and the rights granted by using that property, this is an important issue for us! We make sure we're registered with all of the proper groups who administer and preside over these rights, such as Performing Rights Organizations or PROs (ASCAP is our company of choice), and register our copyrights via the Library of Congress.

We also make sure proper licenses are executed when someone is using our work as either a part of their project or in some other form (like a download or music promotion site), and we keep our eyes and ears open for any infringements on this. There have been times when even well-meaning third parties have uploaded our music somewhere on the web, and we've had to have them remove it. Even when it isn't done with malice, it must only be done officially.

Question 8. What steps do you take to ensure auditions, samples, and other work done for example purposes aren't used illegally?

Answer: It's true that, especially with internet businesses, you HAVE to have samples out there.  But by keeping them embedded on your site without a download location, short length-wise, with watermarking (like an audio voiceover on top of music or a snip of music on a voice over audition) to keep the file otherwise unusable for other purposes, and by keeping the encoding quality a little less than high (but without hurting the integrity of the sample), you can ward off a lot of would-be snatchers. 

Question 9. What one experience has taught you the most about keeping your audio safe on the internet?

Answer: We've been extremely lucky to have enjoyed wonderful working and selling experiences with our clients and customers over the years, but there was one client who we worked with through a third-party hiring site who taught me the most.  I went against my policies and procedures because I really liked the organization he was working for, and did not have him Escrow my payment. 

I created a full ad for him (several versions, actually), without watermarks, and received half-payment.  Half-payment, that was, until about a month later, when the third-party site informed me that they'd received a charge-back, thus giving US a charge-back, because he had paid with a fraudulent credit card. 

He was overseas, had used a fictitious name, and was long-gone.  Without using the Escrow, the third-party site's hands were tied as well, as they could not offer their legal services to me.

It was expensive, it hurt my pride, and it had long-term ramifications.  ALWAYS follow your gut and your procedures!!

Question 10. What other advice would you give anyone entering your field or wishing to work with you about safety?

Answer: Always file your proper paperwork, have procedures laid out that you have no problem communicating with your client, and read every Terms of Service Agreement for every site you partake in.  It may seem that all of those sites are alike, but one little clause difference can mean the difference between you signing over rights to your work!

Some last-minute words of advice:

•     ·        Always follow your instincts, your gut reaction. If a situation doesn't feel right, don't do it, even if it means paying the next guy or gal a little more. 

·        Don't be afraid to ask a service provider questions.

·        Always put everything in writing!