Meet Donna Renee: Specialist for Auto Attendant Greetings and More
BY DONNA RENEE, GUEST BLOGGER
Most of the SkySwitch community know me as the voice of Wendy in all of the CVA Branded Reseller Videos — but, I do more than that!
I’m Donna Renee, Professional Voice Actor and Owner of Advantage IVR. Since 2014, I’ve worked with the SkySwitch community, providing quality auto-attendant greetings and VOaaS solutions for resellers. If you attended Vectors last year, you might remember meeting me there! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting closer to the SkySwitch community, so I felt it was about time to introduce myself a little more so we can continue growing our connection.
A little bit about my background: I actually stumbled into my career as a voice actor while working part-time for an on-hold message company 20 years ago. One of my first clients asked me to voice their on-hold program. Two years after that, they asked me to voice their TV commercial, and that opened the door to launch my career. Today, I have voiced thousands of TV and radio commercials, training and educational videos, sales videos, promos, e-learning modules and of course on-hold messages and auto-attendant greetings!
Since I’ll be hosting a webinar with SkySwitch on April 14th, we thought it would be fun to share a snippet of the broad range of things that I have done over my 20-year career in voice acting.
Here are my “Top Ten Best Hits”:
1. Psalm 46
My personal favorite. Produced by Moving Works, this is a short film bringing to life the reality of Psalm 46, which teaches us to trust God in the midst of life’s worst moments. How appropriate for right now.
2. INTERPOL
I have a video producer client in Germany that gets a lot of EU Government jobs. One of the most interesting assignments that I’ve done for him was an e-learning script for new employee onboarding for INTERPOL. I could tell you more, let you listen to a sample, but then I’d have to _____ ___. You know the rest. It’s a good day to keep living, so let’s move on! LOL.
3. 2016 General Election
I love politics! So, in the 2016 General Election when I scored a relationship with a political production agency, it was a heyday! That season I did the voicing for 1 US Senator, and 35 other candidates and issues. I hope the 2020 General stacks up the same or better!
4. Papa Murphys
For 3.5 years I was the radio voice for Papa Murphys. This was through an agency, and sadly, I don’t have a sample. (I’ve always asked, but they never sent it.) Sure wish I could have had free pizza as part of the deal!
5. Surf’N Gourmet TV Show – Discovery Life Channel
This comes with a disclaimer. I don’t love my voiceover style in this, but I gave them exactly what they asked for — and my client loved it! Even though I sometimes cringe when I hear it, I’m putting it on my list because I was hired by a producer for Discovery Life Channel, which was a big win for me. The Surf’N Gourmet was a TV show airing in the USA and other countries. They were in a new VC round and wanted a sizzle reel to garner interest. I auditioned and got the job!
6. Inspirada
This was a commercial for an adult living community in a Las Vegas suburb. Another big audition win on a huge ‘pay to play’ platform … hundreds of auditions. I think this turned out great!
7. St. Joseph Medical Centers
Big win through one of my agents …the client auditioned thousands of voices through multiple agents, couldn’t find what they were ‘listening’ for and kept searching through multiple agencies. Finally, they heard my voice and I got hired. What a blessing!
8. Heathman Hotel – Art Tour
This was the most unique gigs I’ve ever done. The Heathman Hotel in Downtown Portland Oregon has an eclectic art curation that they are quite proud of. They created an audio tour of it and I voiced it! Super unique and fun project. They renovated the hotel in 2018 and sadly my audio tour no longer exists. But it was there for a decade!
9. Car Gal – Lexus, Volvo, Mercedes, BMW, Maserati, Genesis
Somehow, I have become the go-to Luxury Car Gal voiceover for commercials — and I love it! I should have counted how many car ads I’ve voiced. Radio, TV and internet. Here are three favorites!
10. Funny Commercial – ODC – Son Burn
Lastly, I have one client who does comedic, parody-types of commercials. They always crack me up. Sometimes they almost cross the line, as in this case. Is it really funny? No — but at the same time, yes. I included this one because sometimes a little dose of laughter is a good thing.
I hope you enjoyed listening to my top hits! Keep an eye out on social media and the weekly SkySwitch newsletter for some of my upcoming blog posts that will cover voiceover do’s and don’ts, and for reminders on webinars that I’ll be speaking on.