Today we’d like to introduce you to Heidi Rew.
Heidi, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as a creative professional.
As a young girl, people always told me, “Heidi, you’ll do something GREAT one day.” What was supposed to be encouraging instead almost haunted me.
After college, I hosted a small cable TV show then went into radio as an on-air personality in Chattanooga and Atlanta for over eight years. Throughout my radio career, my goal was to eventually have my own morning show. Not because I wanted it to be the HEIDI REW show but because I wanted more creative input. I remember coming to my program director in 2009 saying I thought with the whole new PPM (Portable People Meter) rating system; it would be great if we could create 10/15 second radio spots instead of just the 30/60 second spots. I even gave examples of what that would sound like. As an on-air personality, you have to create compelling content in 7-10 seconds between songs so I knew we could create compelling ads in 10-15 seconds. That would cut down on ads, which would bolster PPM ratings and if we could sell it to advertisers, we’d be innovators in the radio industry. He brushed aside my idea, which I know was a little “out there” at that time. Fast forward to today, and 10-second ads on Spotify and Pandora are commonplace. During my whole time in radio, I felt like I was a little trapped with what I knew I could do. I wanted to innovate. I wanted to create. I wanted to make waves. Time and time again, I felt stifled. I got job offers from other cities, but my husband was in radio and an actor. To be able to find a job for both of us in another city that also offered acting opportunities was truly challenging. At the end of my rope, feeling stuck and a little depressed my husband encouraged me to quit the radio station and pursue voiceover, acting and my blog, Parties for Pennies, full-time (something I had been doing part-time while in radio).
A radio mentor of mine really encouraged me to take three months off just to read, reflect, research and train before I did anything. I didn’t do that, and it is something I regret to this day. I jumped right in desperately trying to find validation that I had made the right choice. Acting and voiceover are two things you should NEVER do if you’re looking for validation. You’re not gonna get it. If you do, it’s so drowned out by the rejection it’s like a needle in a haystack. This went on for years. Voiceover paid the bills; I booked a decent amount of on-camera work and the blog was a great creative outlet but at most brought in 12k/year working several days a week on it.
The Parties for Pennies blog brought a lot of great opportunities – appearance on The Better Show, a nationally syndicated talk show, Talk of the Town appearance (Nashville talk show), stylist for Kate Aspen (party supply company) and meeting other incredibly talented bloggers. Meeting those talented bloggers gave me an idea for a pilot talk show called The Modern Post. I spent $12k creating a pilot episode and pitching it to all the broadcast and cable networks. They loved the idea but felt it was better online. So, I pitched it to all the online networks. No one wanted it. Heartbroken, I figured this was another attempt at achieving that greatness that wasn’t meant to be.
During this whole time, several friends and my life/business coach encouraged me to start a podcast. I kept saying, “I’m too busy. I just can’t do one more thing.”
Two years ago, my husband and I opened up Atlanta Voiceover Studio. Atlanta Voiceover Studio is a boutique recording studio specifically geared for voiceovers where we also offer training. When that happened, I knew it was time to let Parties for Pennies go. I had been posting every single week for six years, and the income never exceeded $12k, so I let that be a hobby instead of a stream of income.
Still, throughout all of this, I keep thinking, “when will I live up to that greatness that everyone said I was capable of?” With on-camera and voiceover work, to people not in the industry, it feels like it’s not legitimate unless you’re a big name in a movie or heard in Superbowl commercial. I wondered should I still be hoping for that “big break?” I also know so many of my friends who are way more talented than I am, with more experience and no one knows their name. I wondered if I was chasing something elusive. Am I chasing something for the sake of people saying, “Heidi really did something GREAT with her life?”
Almost a year and a half ago, I looked at my life and thought, “What would I truly do if no one watched, no one listened, and no one cared?” It brought me back to creating my own show. That’s when I finally realized my friends and life/business coach were right… I needed to start a podcast. I tried to think of a name but settled on The Heidi Rew Show because I didn’t want to have to keep up with another social media account. It would be a lifestyle show featuring leaders in INTERIOR DESIGN, FOOD, FITNESS/HEALTH, ENTERTAINMENT, BEAUTY/FASHION, BUSINESS, and INSPIRATION.
Last November 2017, I launched The Heidi Rew Show and what a joy filled my heart. Knowing I had a platform to inspire others and create content that would benefit people was what I was looking for. I’m about to publish my 50th episode and am seeing an average of 1000 downloads per episode.
It’s a hard medium to be in. There’s more and more competition every day, but the on-camera and voiceover world have made me pretty resilient. Besides, it’s the thing I’d do if no one listened.
After years searching for what greatness means for me, I realized greatness is not a pinnacle, but a lived out purpose. Throughout my life, being a creator is the running theme and what I feel is my purpose. Whether it’s creating a podcast, helping collaborate and create a voiceover/on-camera personality for a brand, or creating a summer bucket list with my mentee, I will be living in greatness.
We’d love to hear more about your work. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I am the host of a lifestyle podcast called The Heidi Rew Show. It’s a podcast that features leaders in Interior Design, Fitness, Food, Beauty/Fashion, Entertainment, Business, and Inspiration. I hope people learn something and feel inspired by the podcast.
I also am a voiceover artist and actress and co-own Atlanta Voiceover Studio with my husband, Mike Stoudt.
Do current events, local or global, affect your work and what you are focused on?
In one way, technology allows art to be accessible to everyone, anywhere. What an amazing thing it is that people in Switzerland can listen to my podcast. How cool is it that I can voice a commercial that will be heard internationally or in a region different than the south? And what a crazy time that we can audition for a director in LA all via tape. This changes things in a couple of ways: 1| It increases the competition, which allows and pushes us to create even better things. Location no longer has to be a determining factor for a talent pool. 2| Content can be created without a huge financial contribution. It doesn’t require much to create a podcast, web series or even set up a simple at home recording studio. The negative consequence in both of these is that content becomes a commodity. We’re seeing a big issue arise in both the voiceover and on-camera world when it comes to rates. Before, rates were determined by whether it was radio, broadcast TV, cable TV, or movie and the length of time it ran. Now with so much advertising being done online, it’s been hard to establish a standard everyone is in agreement on for online media. No longer do you buy ads for 13-weeks or one year. If it’s online, it could be forever. For voiceover specifically, because anyone can set up a home studio inexpensively, you have online casting sites popping up everywhere. I’ve had a few people say my rate was too high because “I could go to an online casting site and someone would do it for cheap.”
Do you have any events coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you?
To subscribe and listen to my podcast, The Heidi Rew Show – You can go to iTunes: https://apple.co/2DNnksx
The PODCAST WEBSITE (also has links to podcast via Google Play, Stitcher, Tunein & Overcast): https://theheidirewshow.fireside.fm/45
iHEART RADIO: https://ihr.fm/2LBjxHW or Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2Md8OPa
For my voicework and on-camera work – www.HeidiRew.com
Social Media – @heidirew (Twitter & Instagram), Facebook.com/TheHeidiRewShow
And Atlanta Voiceover Studio – @AtlantaVoiceoverStudio (FB & IG) @atlvostudio (Twitter).
Contact Info:
- Website: www.HeidiRew.com | www.AtlantaVoiceoverStudio.com | https://theheidirewshow.fireside.fm
- Email: heidi@heidirew.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/heidirew
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheHeidiRewShow
- Twitter: www.Twitter.com/heidirew
- Other: www.AtlantaVoiceoverStudio.com
Image Credit:
Main Shot: Cat and Zach Photography, Headshot Photo: Nicole Kovacs
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