The sensible and lovely Danielle Famble joins BOSS Anne Ganguzza to discuss a critical, often-overlooked aspect of running a voiceover business: disaster preparedness and maintaining operations during times of crisis. Using Danielle's personal experience of a sudden apartment flood, the hosts outline the necessary steps for every voice actor to ensure both physical and financial resilience.

00:01 - Speaker 1 (Announcement)
Hey, if you're looking to take your podcast to the next level, my podcast consultation coaching services teach you how to sound more authentic, develop smart strategies and market your show effectively. Let's elevate your podcast together. Visit anneganguzza.com to get started. 

00:20 - Speaker 2 (Announcement)
It's time to take your business to the next level the boss level. It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host. 

00:37 - Anne (Host)
Anne Ganguzza. Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Boss Money Talk Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am here with the sensible and lovely Danielle Famble. 

00:50 - Danielle (Guest)
Hey Anne, sensible and lovely, that's me. 

00:53 - Speaker 1 (Announcement)
Sensible and lovely. Danielle, oh Danielle, how are you? 

00:56 - Danielle (Guest)
I'm all right. I'm okay. It's been a little crazy in my world, but I'm doing all right. How about you? 

01:05 - Anne (Host)
Well it's been. I think it's just been crazy in my world. But I'm doing all right. How about you? Well it's been. 

01:08
I think it's just been crazy in the world, but you know, that's a, that's a that's a long discussion, but you know there's been a lot of crazy weather events that have been happening and and unfortunate, unfortunate disasters, and you know, because you're so sensible and ever prepared, Danielle, maybe we should talk about being prepared for your business and disaster, and what do we need to do to be prepared in order to keep our businesses afloat and operational? 

01:38 - Danielle (Guest)
That's a really good point. I have recently been through needing to be prepared and actually I have this booth as part of my preparedness and needing to be prepared out of really out of nowhere. We may have talked about this in other episodes, but my apartment flooded and I had to leave my home pretty suddenly. I had to leave my home pretty suddenly, and so my preparedness, my preparations that I wasn't even sure specifically what I was preparing for. I just needed to have certain things set up. Those things actually came in handy. The long story short of it all is at almost midnight I started hearing what sounded like a fountain in the walls and realized that that was probably not a good thing. 

02:32
Probably not a thing. Probably not a thing and probably not a good thing. Yeah, so I reported it and about 10 minutes later there was water all over the floors, all over in the hallway. There was water pretty much everywhere, and it was pretty clear to me that I needed to leave quickly. So I happened to have a to-go. My tri-booth was pretty much readily available. 

03:00 - Anne (Host)
Well, look at that, the tri-booth, and I myself have a tri-booth, that's at the ready. 

03:05 - Danielle (Guest)
The tri-booth was at the ready. I keep it in the suitcase in my closet. 

03:10
And I was able to just pull some things that I needed important documents, my laptop, my to-go booth and all the things with it, my mic and everything else. Travel. I basically have like a travel rig that I keep set to the side, and I left within half an hour to an hour, and that was actually the last time I lived in that apartment and spent the night in that apartment, unfortunately. So being able to take myself and my things and my business somewhere else, somewhere safe, was a piece of preparedness and also because I wasn't able to live in my home, I needed to use insurance and I needed to use my emergency fund to keep me through. So those were some layers of preparation that, while I was not preparing for my apartment to flood, I was able to use certain things that I had set to the side and set up specifically for that purpose. 

04:09 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, I mean, and there's, you know, the unfortunate floods in Texas, there's the fires in, you know, in LA, and you know we have fire season and there's tornado season. There's just all sorts of things that I think are becoming more prevalent these days, that now I think it's more important than ever that not only are we physically prepared, with things at the ready to go in case we need to evacuate quickly, so that we can, you know, manage to keep our businesses afloat, if that should be, of course. Of course, bosses, the most important thing is you being safe and your family and your loved ones and your pets being safe. Next in line would be you know supplies in order to keep you safe. And then, of course, right, having you know, a tri-booth is actually this is an amazing plug for the tri-booth, and we didn't even intend it, bosses, but both of us have tri booths and I'll tell you what they've. They've saved us in so many situations, myself included when I needed to have a studio set up immediately. That tri booth was convenient, ready to go on wheels, and for Daniel as well. So shout out to the guys, to George and and Tri Booth and Rick Wasserman it's an amazing. It's an amazing portable booth guys. You might want to take a look. I'll put a link in the show notes for you. 

05:32
But that's number one having the physical things but also things like insurance and then understanding what does that insurance cover. I think that's one of the things that you don't want to be surprised, right? You don't want to be surprised, right, you don't want to be surprised. I mean, of course, there's always this thing in, let's say, whatever area, are you near a flood zone, are you covered? You know, make sure that your insurance covers. If you are indeed in a flood zone, what does it cover? What doesn't it cover? If you're in a fire zone, what does it cover? Because we had to check that ourselves, my husband and I, because we are deemed living in a fire zone. So you know, your insurance may cost more, or maybe some insurances won't cover that. So talk to us, danielle, a little bit more about, like, what sorts of things financially, how we can prepare with insurance. 

06:20 - Danielle (Guest)
Yeah, there are several different types of insurance to have. So I think, when we first hear insurance, we think like health insurance for medical purposes, which is definitely one that everyone should have, if you are covered through, maybe, your employer, through your day job, through SAG-AFTRA, through NAVA, for example, like there are so many opportunities and options, the marketplace. So your health is one way that you would need to have insurance. Another thing would be your home. So is it renter's insurance, is it homeowner's insurance? And what does that cover? And making sure that you have a deductible. You understand how much your deductible is, because that's how much you're going to be responsible for. 

07:03 - Anne (Host)
And read the fine print, I just want to say, yes, right, what is covered and what is not, and what is not. Sometimes they're vague. Insurance companies are vague, I think on purpose, exactly. 

07:17 - Danielle (Guest)
So understand your living situation and having insurance for where you live Is it renters, is it homeowners insurance? And then there are some business insurances that you could have, so it could be covering your business if you are not working in your business for a little bit of time. It could be like a disability insurance if you're disabled and you're not able to work for a certain period of time. It could just be general liability insurance for your business, which could then cover certain things that your business owns, certain equipment that your business owns. So that's something to consider as well. 

07:53
There are different kinds of business insurances that you can have for your business, and you might have some of those. You might have a multitude of them, and each insurance has its own deductible, and so you should be prepared to pay that. And that's really where your emergency fund can come in, because if it is necessary, in the unfortunate event that you do need to use your insurance be it health, be it homeowners, renters, disability insurance you need to know how much you are expected to come out of pocket. And having that money set to the side for those things, that is what I deem an emergency, and so that's also what I calculate when I'm figuring out, how much do I need to have in an emergency fund, I also look at my deductibles. How much would I need to cover, and being able to have that put to the side is one thing that will just help you feel better. 

08:46 - Anne (Host)
And one thing I definitely want to say bosses, the reason why we're even talking about this is because we are running our own businesses. For all of you who are, you know I came from the corporate world. It wasn't something that I had to think about business insurance. It just wasn't because it wasn't my business, it was somebody else's. No-transcript, and absolutely make sure you're reading the fine print to make sure that you're covered, especially if it's a full time gig for you. Now, danielle, if, let's say, bosses are working part time, is it? Do you think it's worthwhile to look into business insurance, or