Voice Notes is an every-Friday feature. We take you inside the online brand presence of a business owner we think you should know — through a dozen evocative sentence-starters.

Abby (Chief Voice Bureau Officer) says:

One of my intentions behind Voice Notes is to let you see more deeply into the mind, heart, soul, and lifestyle of a brand creator with whom we’re closely affiliated. In many cases, that means we’re an actual affiliate for this person’s service, program, or experience — we believe so much in what this person has to offer we’re willing to put our name behind it, and we receive thank-you monies when you purchase the offer through our affiliate link. Today is such an example.

I’d like to introduce you to Monica McCarthy, the Founder of Show & Tell Stories Productions, a boutique production company helping small businesses, entrepreneurs, coaches, and creatives share their stories on camera. When I learned about Monica’s newest creation, Front & Center, I knew I wanted to share this with you. Front & Center is an online multimedia experience designed to help you get your story in the spotlight. In other words, it’s a video-making course perfect for microbusinesses like yours and mine. Most of my clients and readers — and I! — are wanting to add more video to our brand conversations and we know the time to get on it is now. I haven’t seen a better course out there to share with you than what Monica has put together.

I’ll let Monica tell you (and show you) more about it here.

(The link above is our affiliate link, which means if you click it and eventually buy Front & Center, you’ll receive a Priority Code for $55 off our popular Voice Profile service. IMPORTANT: If you’d like to purchase Front & Center plus the 1:1 session with Monica, clear your browser cache, come back to this page, and click this link instead. We’ll email you your Voice Profile Priority Code as soon as we receive a notification you’ve purchased through our link. )

Monica McCarthy, Actress, Producer, Storyteller

Monica is an actress and the Founder of Show & Tell Stories Productions.
Twitter: @MissMMcCarthy, Facebook: SHOW & TELL, YouTube: Monica McCarthy

My top 3-5 Voice Values are:

Enthusiasm, Audacity, Depth. (Note: Discover your own Voice Values when you subscribe to The Voice Bureau’s Insider Stuff e-letter. Look for the sign-up box in the upper righthand corner of the site.)

An unlikely source of creative inspiration for me is:

I find inspiration when I’m going somewhere. I love airplanes especially, but trains, boats, ferries, road trips, even the subway get the wheels turning — both figuratively and literally!

If I could invite 3 people to dinner to give me their take on my work in the world, I’d invite:

1. Ellen DeGeneres because she’s hilarious and quick on her feet.

2. Roger Deakins because he is a brilliant Director of Photography and has a sardonic British sense of humor. (I learned tons from working with him on Revolutionary Road.)

3. Steven Spielberg because when it comes to telling stories with a camera, few can do it better than him.

My brand is all about:

Freedom. Expression. Creativity.

I do the work I do because:

Creating videos and offering consulting services is the ideal convergence between what I enjoy artistically and how I can be of service to people who want to share their stories on camera but feel stuck or overwhelmed about the process.

The best compliment I’ve ever received from a client is:

On a recent shoot, a client turned to me and said, “You get it. You really understand what’s it’s like to be on both sides of the camera. I trust you and that’s given me an outlet to share my work in way I only dreamed could be possible.”

Yep, warm fuzzies over here.

If I couldn’t do the work I’m doing now, I’d be a:

CIA Agent. Alias-style. [Abby’s note: Me, too!]

I knew I’d arrived in the middle of my entrepreneurial ‘sweet spot’ when I:

Received requests for more classes and services! I’m trying to keep up!

The next big business challenge for me is:

I’d like to figure out how to not work myself into the ground seven days a week.

I can never get enough:

Tweets from Maria Popova (@brainpicker). I don’t know where she finds all the gems she shares, but they are guaranteed to be fascinating.

My lifestyle, in 3 words:

Frenetic, Flexible, Flowing

What I really wish you could see about yourself is:

Your story is enough. Smoke and mirrors along with bells and whistles aren’t necessary.

In the comments, we’d love to know:

Why haven’t you already added video to your brand conversation? What’s been holding you back? (Or — if you have video in your mix, what have been your biggest challenges about getting videos planned, made, posted, or shared?) Monica and I are listening in the comments and we’d love to hear from you.