Getting started in Voiceover

In the last 150 plus years, there have been a few periods of madness in the USA that were called a “gold rush.” The most famous was the California gold rush in the middle of the 19th century.

As you may or may not know, there were only a relatively few people who actually struck riches during any of these gold rushes. No, the people who most consistently made good money were the merchants who supplied the miners with tools and supplies. And at the time there were no certification bodies for safety or quality. So, when buying a pick or axe or shovel, the miner was on his own to determine if it was of an appropriate quality to do the work and last long enough to actually get some results.

So what does this mini history lesson have to do with voiceover?

In the last few years, there’s been quite a rush into voiceover. I can’t count the number of emails, calls and other messages I’ve received from people who have heard that there’s “good money in voiceover.” Here’s a quick thought on that subject before I continue:

“Voiceover is a great way to make a living, but it’s a terrible way to make a living quickly.” – Bob Souer

Look, voiceover is a business so, yes, you need to pay attention to making money. But, it’s also art. So, if you’re in voiceover just to make money, there are probably a lot better avenues to pursue. It’s a long, hard slog to build your business to the point that you can make a living doing just voiceover work. Only a tiny fraction of all the people who start out to make a career in voiceover ever make any real money at it. A very tiny fraction.

Meanwhile, you’ll find loads of folks with “advice” or seminars or workshops on how to make money in voiceover. I have no fear of being wrong when I advise you to run in the opposite direction from anyone who wants to sell you something or some plan to help you make money in voiceover.

There are many legitimate coaches. But there are a host of people more interested in separating you from your hard-earned money than they are in actually helping you make any real progress toward your goal of working in voiceover. I sincerely wish this were not true, but it is. Be very careful who you start studying with. Ask questions. Here’s one: What are the names of 5 people who have studied with you who are now working full-time in voiceover?

Assuming you get the names, contact these individuals and ask them about their experiences.
The coaches with whom I’ve studied have my explicit permission to use my name and share my contact information. I’m happy to give an honest evaluation about my experiences. And I do.

When you find a coach who is helping people actually make a living in voiceover, and you’ve talked with several students, then go for it. The money you invest (assuming you’re willing to do the work to actually learn and put into practice what you’re learning) will pay substantial returns in the long run.

My friend Michael Minetree has just unveiled a custom search engine for voiceover called Voiceover Online. Pretty cool stuff you’re doing there, Michael.

The power of accumulated time is something most of us don’t understand or if we do, we don’t really want to. My friend Dan Friedman blogged today about this subject with great eloquence in a post called The Most Difficult Part to Being in Voiceover. I’ll wait a minute until you’ve had the time to read and absorb what he said. When you’re done, click the “back” button and we’ll pick up again.

Good, but a little difficult to swallow in some ways, isn’t it? We don’t want to have to wait, but Dan’s right. Waiting is part of the deal. By the way, the waiiting bit is true for those of us who have been doing voiceover for years, just like it is for those who are just getting started or who’ve been doing voiceovers for a short time. And not just in looking back. We all have to wait, sometimes for a long time, in lots of different ways. It’s part of the deal.

The cool thing is that there’s something you can do to make the time pass a little more quickly. It’s to harness the power of the magical little E.L.B.s. You can read about these magical little creatures in the archives of the Monday Morning Memo, if you’d like to know a bit more. But, here’s the short version.

Every day, every single day, don’t go to sleep until you’ve made at least one step forward on your journey. It doesn’t matter how big or small the step. It doesn’t matter if it’s publicly visible or something only you know about. But every day you have to take some kind of action, move at least some tiny bit in the direction you’re going. If that’s success doing voiceovers then that’s the direction you need to head.

And the cumulative power of those little steps, taken one day after another, day after day will amaze you because it’s not one day’s action added to the next day’s and the day after that and so forth and so on. They don’t just add one to another. They begin to compound and multiply and before you know it, you’ve made an amazing amount of progress.

For 26 years I worked on voiceover as much as I possibly could, and things have gone pretty well for years; but it wasn’t until just the last 5 years or so that things have really taken off.

If you really do want an avalanche (remember I’ve all ready warned you it’s not fun to be sitting until that avalanche when it falls on you), you’re going to have to work at it every day, one little bit at a time. Unlike a real avalanche, which can be accelerated by explosions and the like, the avalanche of work has to be started one little bit at a time.
Are you ready to do the work? The only thing necessary is for you to start.

Pat Fraley is making a trip to the East Coast next month. If you are interested in character voices, audiobooks, animation and games you really should study with Pat. Details are on his web site.

The other day I posted some thoughts that flowed from a Seth Godin blog piece at The Domino Project about luck and work and the old way of doing things in the publishing business. I made the analogy that auditioning for voiceover work is, in some ways, similar to the way the publishing business was run.

Now, I have nothing against auditioning as a way of getting voiceover work. I audition for things myself and in fact book work from auditions multiple times each year. But, auditioning is a process that leaves only one person with a job when many applied for it.

It’s much better when the work comes directly, without an audition, through relationships all ready established; or through relationships based on referrals from existing clients. This works very well for those of us who have been doing voiceovers for a while. But, as one of my good friends pointed out the other day, what about those who are just getting started? They don’t have a pool of existing clients from whom to get work or referrals.

Those comments from my friend have led me to think about this subject quite a bit in the last few days. I certainly don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that building relationships and getting work repeatedly from clients happens by magic or just by thinking about it.

Actually, thinking about it is important. But, after the thinking comes the doing.

For example, are there things you could do based on your own creativity that can lead to work? One friend came up with an idea to market her voiceover services directly to a category of businesses in her area. Made some phone calls. Put in some effort turning her idea into something practical and useful to those businesses. It didn’t happen overnight and it took some concerted effort and persistence, but it paid off.

Or, are there people who write about marketing (on a blog or in a freely distributed newsletter for example) from whom you can draw some ideas that you can implement yourself? Now, people writing for the general marketplace probably won’t offer an idea that can be used directly. You’ll probably have to think about how to adapt their ideas to the world of voiceover, but you’re a creative, intelligent person. You can do this.

What are the businesses that hire the kind of work you do or want to do? For example, let’s say you want to narrate audiobooks. There are a few big players that you can find with little effort; but what about the other publishers who are in the second or third tier of the business? It may take some extra digging to find those companies and, having found them, to learn how to submit to them. Everyone wants the low-hanging fruit. Your goal is to find the fruit that’s not so easy to pick.

I hope these few random observations help you start thinking about what you can do to move forward. And I’d love to hear how you make strides. Comments are always open.

One of Seth Godin’s newest enterprises is The Domino Project. Several days ago Seth posted on their blog this question: Are you feeling lucky? Now, because The Domino Project is an effort to reinvent publishing, the most obvious point of that blog post about feeling lucky has to do with publishing. But the application to voiceover is equally important and valid.

In voiceover, the obvious parallel to the publishing model is auditioning for a job. Just like there would have to be a bestseller every week, there is going to be someone who books the job when auditions are sent out.

Now, this is not a rant against auditioning. I’ll leave such literary explorations to others. The point I’m trying to make here is that if you build your voiceover business on the basis of auditioning for work, then you’re always operating from the position of being “one of many” and only some of the time are you going to end up as the one who books the job. Sure, in an ideal world, auditions are only sent to a select number of talent; but in the real world where we all live and work, that’s not how it always happens.

There are lots of factors that contribute to the way things are. Again, I’ll leave the enumeration of those factors to others. What I’m hoping to persuade you to see is that auditioning isn’t the only way to book work.

Last year was a good year for me. And over 80% of my income came to me directly. An email or a phone call arrived with a message to the effect of: “Dear Bob, we’d like to send you a significant sum of money. Would you record the attached script for us?” This experience isn’t unique to me. Many working professionals in voiceover have learned the value of building relationships with people who want to work with them.

It takes time, a deep commitment to excellent service, and hard work. Put in the time and effort and you, too, can get those kinds of calls or emails. As you do, I’d love to hear from you.

Jeff Hixon, CEO of Voicebank writes about some of the myths about and mistakes made by voiceover people, that’s published at Back Stage. My thanks to Bobbin Beam for mentioning this article on her blog.

Seth Godin, a very bright man, has started a new venture called The Domino Project. The newest release is called Anything You Want by Derek Sivers, the brains behind CD Baby. Derek is creating animated videos to illustrate some of the key points of his new book. This one is called If It’s Not a Hit, Switch.

If it’s not a hit, switch from Derek Sivers on Vimeo.

I don’t know if Derek realizes he was aiming this one at voiceover people or not, but wow does that hit the mark.