Real HumanSo you’re a voice actor and you’ve found yourself with a few moments when you have no voice over projects or auditions in your inbox. GREAT! Time to take a nap or watch some TV right?
Wrong.
Although building downtime into your overall schedule is important for your physical and mental health, there are always things you can be going to increase your VO skills and booking rates.
Here are a few important things all voice actors should be doing when they’re not recording:
1) Work on Your Craft
A great voice actor is always training and honing their skills or working on new ones. So when you find yourself with time on your hands, that is a great opportunity to:
•Train privately with a new voice over coach
•Coach in a new voice over genre that you haven’t tackled yet
•Attend group voice over “work outs” or group lessons with fellow voice over colleagues
2) Market Your Voice Over Services
Finding potential voice over clients and marketing to those leads takes time. I will often have an on-going list of potential clients to reach out to. When I find myself with a few minutes, I might tackle a handful of them until the next voice over project comes in.
Some potential people/groups to reach out to are:
•Creative Agencies
•Audio Production Houses
•Voice over casting directors
•Past clients that you haven’t heard from in a while
•There are so many more from web video producers to instructional designers, etc.
3) Work on your Voice over Website
Having a professional website is crucial in this business of voice acting. And–if built properly–you may even find yourself getting voice over gigs simply through a client finding you on Google.
I personally still have a lot to learn about SEO and it’s complicated and constantly-evolving nature.
When I am not recording a voice over job in my home studio, I am still sitting in my Whisper room working on this very website! I have a massive to-do list which includes building out many more niche voice over categories in addition to the larger Commercial voice over, TV Promo Voice over, Voice over narration, Radio Imaging, etc.
4) Listen to Voice Over Podcasts
I have actually been shocked at the amount of knowledge and inspiration I have picked up from various voice over podcasts! So many guests drop priceless nuggets of wisdom throughout these conversations–from equipment to lead-finding to self-marketing.
I’ve also been inspired to work with various voice over coaches just from hearing them speak in these conversations.
I almost always finish a podcast inspired to take action in some area of my career.
5) Listen to more Voice overs
Now would be a great time to go to the website of en elite voice over agency or perhaps a voice actor whose career you admire and listen to their work. You can learn so much about current voice over trends and what kinds of deliveries are booking.
Even when you settle down in front of the television, it’s important to listen to those commercials. I personally find it particularly fascinating when I hear a commercial come on that I auditioned for. I learn so much from hearing the voice that booked and how the final spot came out.
Find Balance
In the end (like everything in life), it’s about finding balance. It can’t be ALL work ALL the time or you will burn out. But hopefully this gave you some ideas and a bit of motivation to tackle some items on that “Business of Voice over” checklist.
I look at it this way. I honestly think I have the best job in the entire world. If I can do anything at all that helps keep the work coming and my career going? Then I am all in.
A couple weeks ago, I took some time in
between gigs to order some new gear–
including these pretty aqua headphones!
