The  voiceover market is changing very rapidly. There are many new ways to get jobs and many new ways to market your self to try and get those jobs.  You have a number of choices and we are going to cover just a few of them.

 

You can set up your own web site or put your own voiceover demo on one of the many voiceover talent sites. Or you can do both. One of the main newer strategies is to have your own web site, which can be very simple and then pick three or four of the voiceover talent web sites to also put your demo and contact information on. This way you have postings on a number of talent sites and they all have links to your website. Each of these talents web sites spend a small fortune on advertising, so you don’t have too. There are literally thousands of potential clients visiting those sites so it’s very rapid exposure for the new person. You just have to make sure you’ve got a great demo so you can compete with all the other voices out there.

 

There was a time not so long ago that you either had to be represented by a voiceover talent agency or had to have a friend get you into corporate voiceover work. The internet has changed all of that. Everyone knows that money is much tighter now and many organizations are making use of on line casting rather than going to the more expensive voiceover talent agencies for talent. This means that you want to do as many marketing crossover plans as possible so all the organizations that need voiceover talent can become aware of you.

 

 

Many of the companies who do educational CD Rom’s post casting notices on line and no longer go through voiceover talent agencies any more. They have discovered that they can get great talent at more competitive prices.

 

When you start thinking outside the box, you will come up with your own bright ideas about where to look for work and turn a lack of representation into an advantage because you can work cheaper and directly with clients.

People ask me if they have to be online with a web site or have there demo on a voiceover talent site and the answer is absolutely yes. People have to be able to find you online.

 

 

Here’s a story to inspire you. A little while back a man called me and  said he was doing a 30 second commercials for a company’s web site and needed a female voiceover artist. He said it was not for broadcast but for web use only and that it paid $1000. On a flat buyout. He asked if I could send him MP3’s of 3 women that he could choose from. I said yes, I’d be happy to do that. He said, “Well, you’re the only one!!!!!” I was a little shocked and said what do you mean.

He then started to explain that he had called three different talent agencies in town and they wouldn’t submit any demos of talent until he took the time to answer a number of questions about his project and that all three of them said they would assign him an agent in the next two or three days to handle his project.

He laughed and said “ya know I ‘m just trying to meet my production deadline and don’t have time for all of this red tape”….

 

Well, there you have another clear illustration of why more and more people are  casting outside of voiceover talent agencies.

 

These are just a few samples of how the industry is changing. Time is money and casting from online is very fast indeed.

 

 There are many people who can read copy well. The most important skill however is to be able to personalize copy. Making the copy sound like it's a collection your own ideas that you are relating to a friend is the key to good communication or getting cast for a voiceover job. This requires an ability to make subtle change-ups in tone of voice and cadence that sound like your "Day Voice" and not like an announcer reading copy or a salesperson with a canned approach. The ability to persuade comes from staying in the tonal bandwidth of natural conversation between friends. The directions on many commercials will say over and over, “Not announcery!” 

In voiceovers and in any kind of public speaking people simple do not like being talked “at”. None of us do. We expect people to reason with us, share convictions in an unforced way that allows us to absorb what is being said. This approach makes us feels like the presenter or voiceover person trusts our judgment.

This is just another version of the age old warning that the meaning is never just in the words. Over 90% of all communication has nothing to do with the actual words you are speaking. The tone of voice is just about everything. If someone say “Don’t take that tone of voice with me!” It becomes crystal clear that you have miscalculated the tone of voice required for effective communication. The point is, whether someone is angry or not, EVERYTHING is about tone of voice and how you say it. Becoming proficient in the art of voice acting is a great way to start a new career or become a much more effective communicator both personally and professionally. Think before you speak and consider how you say it

The short answer is not for a while. AI voices still mispronounce many words and are terrible at parenthetical moments. They really can't personalize text at all. I have lost about a dozen of my corporate narration clients to AI, but have gotten most of them back because of the limitations of AI voices. The lesson here is that you want to maximize how much you personalize all of your reads for clients.

 Well here’s the task for all mankind let alone a voiceover artist. Whether in a person’s business life or personal life we spend a lifetime asking our selves who we are. Learning how to be your self requires that we know who that person is, to some degree at least. The advice I give people all the time is to simply say:

“Your best chance of getting work is to be your self.” It doesn’t matter whether it’s a voiceover job you’re trying to get, or going to the next job interview, be yourself”

 

It’s a useful “bumper sticker” slogan, but I’d like to talk a bit about the process of the discovery and how to relax into that, and how to trust it. …and what it means and what it doesn’t mean. 

 

When we get to a place in our heads where we can “be our selves” the advantages are huge. Life isn’t nearly as stressful. We stop being angry. We stop taking things personally and start viewing things as feedback that allows us to make corrections and move on. When we learn how to be our selves and accept our selves, we stop criticizing everyone else. The stress of NOT being our selves or knowing our selves is exhausting and frustrating. It can create a lot of stress and we can find our selves acting out on people because of it. So in learning to be our selves we are UN cluttering our minds and freeing the hard drive space between our ears to engage in the process of success.

 

When we are comfortable in our own skins people will enjoy being around us. And of course that is very helpful in getting jobs, voiceover jobs, or any job. In these times that is becoming more and more important. This is important to remember. It is not merely about being the most talented voiceover artist, plumber, teacher, sales person, lawyer or dentist. 

A lot of people could do the actual work, but people hire people that they like the best. The best plan in the world is to like your self and be your self.

 

©Dan Balestrero 2024