A healthy amount of skepticism is necessary to survive as a voice over actor. Why, you ask? Because the voice over business eats their young. Sometimes services offered by “successful” voice actors to others in the business are not what they seem. Often, a DIY approach is better.
The holidays are here and this time, every year, I get those Black Friday specials. No, not from Amazon, or Macy’s, or my local ski shop. I get them from fellow voice actors who market services like cold-call emailing lists, demo production, coaching, P2P sites, etc. Is their business model THAT good it can’t be figured out? Can’t you just do it yourself?
How the voice over business eats their young
I’ve been thinking about this turn in the business for quite some time, but couldn’t find a way to talk how the VO business eats their young without sounding like I’m whining. But, when I got this weeks email newsletter from James Clear, I figured it out. He wrote “Learn from what people do as much as what they say”. So when a voice actor offers to show you how to grow your customer base with their magic emailing list, they are growing an emailing list business. “But wait,” you think. “Aren’t they a successful working voice actor?” Hmmmmm.
Are they really valuable services?
I understand some of us have skills beyond VO and why not sell those valuable services? Fair enough, but I can’t help but look on every breathless email sales pitch from a colleague with a jaundiced eye. It makes me wonder how much VO they’re actually doing. Otherwise, why would they bother. I wouldn’t, and still don’t, even though I have more disappointing months these days due to COVID then I used to. I don’t know about you, but I got into this business to do the craft. It makes me happy. The thought of selling my skills as a Demo Producer or Vocal Coach, etc. to a green voiceover newbie makes me feel unhappy, and a little dirty.
Remember, the voice over business eats their young: DIY.
Once you unpack the business model of these voice over services, you may find you can DIY. Do. It. Yourself. Free tools exist on the web to gather and verify emails for potential clients. One I’ve used is hunter.io. Simply install it in your browser, go to a website and find and verify emails of anyone in the company! I bet the people selling the email list to you is doing the same thing. It takes time and creativity to compile and update a good list of prospects, but it’s not rocket science. And it’s part of our job, right? Look, if you are booked solid with actual paying jobs, congratulations! By all means spend some of that money and let someone else do the tedious work of compiling a mailing list. But if you have a couple hours here and there with no auditions to read and bookings, then why not DIY?
Hopes and dreams and vulnerability
I’ve seen a lot of newbie voice actors full of hopes and dreams and looking for an easy way to gain an advantage in this business. Those newbies are highly vulnerable to a slick pitch from a seasoned voice actor selling them a service they are either not ready for, don’t need, or could do them selves. If you’re a newbie, you probably have no clients and all the time in the world to figure things out on your own. You’ll learn a lot about yourself and how to survive in voice over, and best of all, you won’t become someones dinner.