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I have a confession to make. I struggle with knowing my worth and charging appropriately for my services. You may have heard me on my podcast The VO Meter, (www.vometer.com) discussing how it is SO important to set a rate for your voice over work that is commensurate with the amount of work involved, or the usage of the finished product; ideally both.

Well, with respect to Spike Lee, I haven’t always Done the Right Thing.

Like many of my readers or listeners, I’m sure…once upon a time I didn’t know what I was worth. Client asked me for 500 words at $50? “Sure, that sounds great”, I said. Do a 50,000 word audiobook for $100 per finished hour? “No problem, I can still pay an editor and make a profit”, I would mutter.

That’s a profit right? More than I would have made otherwise? The problem is, those rates are nowhere near industry standard. How do I know? Well, after being in this business for several years I found there ARE resources out there to turn to in order to find out what IS a fair rate. A great example is the Global Voice Acting Academy, or GVAA rate guide. You can find it here: https://www.globalvoiceacademy.com/gvaa-rate-guide/

David Toback and the fine folks at GVAA have taken the guess work out of the process. The best part, it’s completely free to use! They just want to stop the race to the bottom that has plagued the industry, and help people know what they are worth.

Speaking of…Even after all the research I have done, and preaching to the choir about doing things the right way, I still struggle with this, and I demonstrated it again a few weeks ago. A client came to me with a project. A series of power point presentations they wanted narrated. They offered me $100 per finished hour. The carrot they put in front of me was the promise of 2000 hours. Some quick math in my head and I said “That’s a lot of money!”. So I accepted it. Then, I sat down and did a few hours of videos. I thought “This is a ton of work!” I should have known better, but I caved. Sad, I know.

So, I decided to get some help. I reached out to my agents at The Atherton Group, TAG and requested them to step in on my behalf to re-negotiate my deal. After all, this is a lot of work and if we can get a fair rate, it would be beneficial for both of us. The agent made the offer of a fair rate, straight from the GVAA guide. You know what? The client didn’t say no!

Now, they didn’t exactly say yes either. The discussions are ongoing, but things look promising. I don’t expect them to jump at the GVAA rate after what I had originally agreed to, but I do expect we’ll get closer, and that will be a huge step in the right direction for me.

I know it’s hard. If you are doing this, or running any full time business, it can be hard to turn down a paycheck. We all have bills coming in, and sometimes it seems something is better than nothing. It is not, however, if you damage your own career, or even the career of your colleagues, by setting the expectation of lower rates being okay.

So, say it with me, break those old habits, or don’t start bad ones in the first place and KNOW YOUR WORTH!

Be EVERYWHERE!

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. It’s an expression with which we are all familiar. Did you know that the reverse is also true? As a voice over artist, you have to make sure your eggs (so to speak) are EVERYWHERE! Recently, I’ve started to have the fruits of my labor, pay off in surprising ways for my voiceover career.

You see, when I first started. Everybody I talked to (at least the ones I respected) told me voice-over is a long game. I get that; even wrote a previous blog about it, The Long Game

As a veteran of several different business ventures, I know it takes a long time to prospect, build up a client base, garner enough trust to get referrals from clients, and ultimately have repeat clients. Being a voice actor is no different. It’s a business, at its heart.

So, those early years in my business, I put my name out and sent demos to anyone and anybody that would listen (and often times to people who wouldn’t). Online casting sites, production houses, videogame producers, radio stations, agents to name a few. I worked with several freelance sites, audiobook publishers, elearning companies. I even searched for and placed ads on craigslist.

I had some success right away. Some clients I still work with today. Not everything worked out. I have parted ways with several companies, and casting sites, and added new ones.

Then this month, it finally happened. I was contacted for work from three places I couldn’t even remember submitting my demos to. One was from a production house to whom I sent my demo 2 years ago. I went back through my email and realized they never even answered me! Apparently, however, they kept me in their database, and when this project came up, they sent it to me! The other contact came from a smaller online casting site (no not THAT one). They sent me to jobs that I was already booked on based on my demos. Finally, a friend from Church, and Youth baseball contacted me and asked me to do the voicemail for his company’s integrated voice response system or IVR. I asked this friend, how he even knew I did voice over. His answer, “I think we are connected on Linked In”. Another place I have not only my profile, but clear statements that I’m a professional voice actor, and my website.

For those of you just starting out, this is the holy grail of voice over. Clients reaching out to you for work, not the other way around. Now, these jobs are not going to pay my mortgage this month, or even my latest microphone purchase, but the point is, its a start. I don’t expect this to be the norm from here on out. Any freelancer from any walk of life will tell you that business is a constant roller coaster. There will be highs, and lows, and at times you’ll scream you want to get off.

The point is, you have to constantly be looking for new opportunities for people to hire you for voice work. Whether that be a local phone message, a national commercial, or anything in between. As the saying goes, ABC, always be closing. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, put them in EVERY basket.

Hello Everyone,

This is just a quick note to say THANKS! to all the listeners and fans of our podcast The VO Meter, www.vometer.com

When I had this thought about sharing what I have learned 2 years ago, I wasn’t sure it was something anybody wanted to hear. Heck, lots of established pros told me “Hey, nobody wants to hear that”. I was convinced, however, that there were people out there, however few, that needed to know others were struggling just like they were. When they messed up during an audition. When they sent a submission to an agent. When they made a QUESTIONABLE GEAR PURCHASE. They needed to know that they were not alone.

Well, now 7000 of you have found out, you are note alone! All of us have trials and tribulations, and it helps to share them in this great, welcoming community we call Voice Over.

So, thanks again for listening, and we will try to keep sharing our journey and Measuring our Voice Over Progress.

Having trouble using networking to grow your business? Do you find it hard to meet people at business events? Are you a “wall flower” at networking functions? It doesn’t have to be that hard. Use these 3 strategies at your next industry get together, and you’ll be growing your network in no time. The best part…You probably already learned all this in High School, or the singles scene shortly thereafter!

I should preface this by saying the great part about business to business marketing, at least until our robot overlords completely takeover is that it really is all about the people! Talking to people and having real conversations is the best way to create meaningful long lasting relationships. Then, the business will come because as the saying goes, people like doing business with people they like!

So, on to the 3 strategies I use to network, that have served me for the last twenty years.

1. The Wing-Man. Or Wing-Person, as we probably should call it now. When going to an event. Find somebody you know and team up. Heck, even bring somebody with you. You can call them a friend, an accountability buddy, or even a crutch! Just make sure there is someone else you know at the event, that is willing to meet people with you. There is safety in numbers. You already know this! It’s the same way you traveled around your high school dance with either your best buddy, or closest girlfriend. Now, as you go around the room, bring your friend with you. From here you can go one of two ways. First, you can be the initiator of the conversation. You start a conversation, then shortly into the conversation you say “Hey, do you know my friend John?” Now you both have been introduced. Or, you can use your friend as the REASON for the introduction. Approach somebody you don’t know, and say “Hi, I wanted to introduce Jane, I think you two could help each other”. The beauty of this approach is the end result is 3 people now know each other. Hey! You’ve just created a network!
2. The Drive-By. You know this one too. Remember at the football pep rally when you saw that cute guy near the hot chocolate? Same principle here. Find someone you want to talk to, near the exhibit table, or the bar. Casually walk up and say “Hi, I’m Steve, I was headed to the Vendor area, care to join me?” Sometimes the answer is “Yes! I was just about to go myself!”. Of course, sometimes the answer is “No”, but you have still planted the seed of the introduction. Which brings me to strategy number 3.
3. The Mole. This sounds sinister, I know, but really it’s not. This is the equivalent of having your girlfriend pass the “do you like Mary” note to a boy in class. I’m sure you have done this at parties already. You pick a colleague, probably somebody who you already know has connections at a certain a event, and send them on a reconnaissance mission! Again, there are a few ways to play this one. First, just have your “Mole” warm up the crowd. Tell jokes, ask about the kids, the dog etc. Then after a few minutes, you come bursting in and your friend introduces you. Another way to approach this is for your friend to actually talk you up (again high school dance!) They say “I was just talking to my friend Dave, and I think He’d be a GREAT partner for you!”. Finally, you combine strategy number 2 and use The Drive-By here.  Your friend is working the crowd, everybody is laughing. You casually breeze by and say “Hey Kristen, looks like you are having a blast, anybody need a drink?” Now, you may have just added 5 new people to your network!

All of these strategies are simple ways to help with your confidence at networking events, and can greatly increase your business contacts. I have used these for years to wonderful results. The best part? You already know them? You probably learned them in High School!

Ahh, The obligatory New Years Resolution blog post…It’s cliche, of course, but darned if it isn’t a good excuse to put something down on paper, or LCD panel, as it were.

At any rate, I hope you will indulge me in taking down some notes, more for myself, but that maybe, will help somebody else. Here goes.

I am not usually one to make bold resolutions. I am more of a think it, do it kind of guy, whatever time of year that might be. When I was a younger man and legalized gambling was isolated to pretty much Las Vegas and Atlantic City, I would routinely hatch a plan at midnight on a Saturday to play some black jack, grab some friends and just drive to New Jersey, a 3 hour one way trip! If you have listened to my podcast The VO Meter, https://www.vometer.com you may have heard the story of how I acquired my Whisper Room. I saw an ad on Craigslist in New York City. I made an inquiry and was driving up I-95 36 hours later in a rented cargo van to pick it up! I don’t need excuses to take action.

Still, mostly due to the fact that I make a lot of business investments in December to qualify for late Tax deductions (or at least I used to, thanks Congress!) I have a lot of memberships that expired recently. That brings me to my first resolution.

I am pairing down my involvement with online casting sites (p2p). My membership to Voice123 expired in December. I decided not to renew. There just wasn’t much return on investment for me. I may try again at some point, but for now, I chose not to continue with that particular company. I had at one time 4 memberships to p2p sites. The other two shall remain nameless. This means bodalgo, is my only current online casting membership. Truth be told, I haven’t had much luck there either, but I really like their process and of course their rock star founder Armin Hierstetter.

This brings up the question then how will I drum up business? Well, I’m glad you asked, because that is resolution number…2

I will market more to local businesses. I have already started looking. I’m in talks with my local chamber of commerce about a membership, and plan to seek out others like it. I will try to reach out to my other contacts locally to see how I can help their businesses. I hope to use Linked in and other networking sites to further build my network locally. After all, a client that is built out of a relationship is more likely to become a long term client.

Finally, I plan (hope) to stop obsessing about equipment and focus more on the important aspects of the business. I have worked long and hard on creating a top notch studio sound and by in large I have achieved that goal; its time to cut that line item out of my budget.

To that end, I plan to focus on coaching. I am about to “Graduate” from the narration training program with Sean Pratt, I am currently doing some coaching on imaging, and I hope to pick back up with character work (Everett, I’m going to call you I promise).

That’s it, really. Like I said, I’m not much of a resolution guy, but the perfect congruence of the budgeting that comes with the end of the year really crystalized things for me and made this list easy.

What are some of your New Years Resolutions? Drop me a comment please!