Today, we're going to warn you about five ways you can really damage your voice acting career, things that can truly hurt your voiceover career and give you a negative reputation, which you don't need. Stick around, because I'm also going to give you five best practices to build your reputation in the voiceover industry, build your career, and enrich your life.

Alright. A couple notes before we start. These five career killers and five best practices only apply to folks that are working professionals in voiceover or who want to be a working professional someday. If you're doing voiceover just for fun or for a hobby, or just to make a few extra bucks and you don't have any intention of ever going professional one day, then these five career killers and best practices don't necessarily apply to you.

Alright. Let's get into it and do it.

Here Are the Five Voice Over Career Killers

Now, if you want to grow your voiceover career and you want to learn voiceover marketing, make sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel.

Number five: Disrespecting anyone

Now, it should go without saying that being a jerk will hurt your career.

But I see this all the time, especially online, where we have the magical protection of not being in the room with somebody to protect us from any repercussions. Being a jerk online is no more acceptable, socially or otherwise, than being a jerk in real life. Whenever you disrespect an agent or coach or another voice, actor or God forbid, a producer or client or engineer, you quickly get labeled as a jerk and difficult to work with because you are.

And nothing travels faster than a bad reputation. Trust me, years ago I got into an online fight with Porky Pig. Bob Bergen. I was out of line, and I'm sure some people still hold it against me. And you know what? I have to live with that.

Number Four: Not Getting Proper Training

I am constantly stunned at the number of voice actors I meet that are untrained or undertrained.

And yet the most common complaint of all voice actors is, "I'm not looking enough!" Hello?!? If you're a working professional, you're auditioning against the best in the business. These people are highly trained and have been for years and decades. If you think eight weeks of coaching is enough to make you successful, you are tragically mistaken. It takes months of training, not days or weeks to properly prepare for a demo and be competitive.

Number Three: Making Your Own Demos

I was in the room in 2018 at MAVO, the Mid-Atlantic Voiceover Conference, when Kari Wahlgren, she's done a few things, said this, "A bad demo is worse than no demo." And then she repeated it. I've been producing broadcast quality audio back since the days of razor blades and tape, over 30 years, and I still don't do my own demos.

A proper competitive demo requires four things: a great writer, producer, director, and talent. Look, even if you're competent in all four roles, putting yourself in those four positions all at one time is setting you up to succeed at none of them. I can guarantee you, unless you're already an accomplished demo producer already producing demos, really good ones, for other voice actors,

and especially if you're a newer talent, your demo will suck and it will damage your career. A lot of producers and agents and casting directors and people that hire and work with voice actors have long memories. Which brings me to…

Number Two: Working on Fiverr and Upwork

What people don't know or don't keep in mind about working on Fiverr and or Upwork is that not only do you expose yourself to crappy jobs with lousy rates, but you can actually damage your career.

Most reputable agents won't work with talent they find on Fiverr and Upwork, and advertising agents regularly hire Fiverr and Upwork actors on the cheap and then throw their work away and don't hire those actors for the final product because they know those platforms are full of hacks and not artisans. For a great explanation on this, click the GVAA link Why I Don't Worry About Fiverr Anymore by David Toback.

And the Number One Career Killer Every Voice Actor Should Know: Not Marketing or Under Marketing Your Services

50% of voice actors in the U.S. report making less than $8,000 a year. 75% report making less than $40,000 a year. And 75% also report reaching out to market their services less than three times a day. What business in the world can you reach out to two people a day and expect to be successful?

We have a passive industry. For decades we've relied on casting directors and agents and pay to plays and freelancer sites for work. Meantime, much of that work has shifted in-house and is directly booked between the client and the voice actor. If you're reaching out to two people a day, you're doing two sit ups a day and wondering why you can't get fit.

Okay. Those are the five career killers that you should avoid at all costs if you are or intend to be a working pro.

Five Best Voice Over Career Practices

Now let's talk about the five best practices you can use to build your reputation in the voiceover industry and build your career.

Number Five: Do Your Research

Sadly, our business has its fair share. I don't think any more or any less than any other business, our fair share of snake oil salesman - people that will sell you a dream and take your money.

Anyone who tries to sell you a demo after a weekend of training or a class or a webinar...they're a snake oil salesman. My suggestion is that you join several voice over Facebook groups. Listen, learn, linger and lurk for a bit. Over time, you'll find out who the reputable coaches, agents, service providers, demo producers are.

You'll also get a wealth of knowledge about the business, the tech end, the marketing end, and all the aspects of being a voice actor. Now for more information on which Facebook groups I recommend, click here to get my free Seven Steps to Starting and Developing a Career in Voiceover.

Number Four: Building Positive Relationships Within the Voiceover Community

That means agents, coaches, service providers, and other voice actors. The voiceover industry at the pro level is the most supportive community I have ever seen. We are not competitors. We are colleagues. We're collaborators, we're friends. As I said, we, like any group, have our occasional dustup. But by and large, this is the most supportive community you're ever going to find.

And there are so many coaches and agents and service providers demo producers, scriptwriters, and the like, that bring so much to our community. Get to know these folks, make friends with them. Once you've done your research and you've joined the Facebook groups, attend some webinars, attend free classes, attend conferences, get out of your booth and get to know people, make real friendships with real people in real life.

Make friends in the business. And seek to give, not to get. Some of the best relationships I have are in the VO community.

And it adds a richness to my life and my career that I can't imagine now living without.

Best Practice Number Three: Get Proper Training

We talked earlier about how a lack of training can hurt your career. Not only are you competing against the most highly trained voice actors in the country, but now you're also competing against dirt cheap A.I., artificial intelligence, voice models, and voice clones.

Just yesterday in his blog, J. Michael Collins, who knows a thing or two about voiceover, had this to say.

"The sub $100 voiceover space is likely to cease to exist for human voice actors in the next five years. The $100 to $250 space could see up to an 80% loss of jobs replaced by robots and the $200 to $500 space may see as many as 20% of jobs lost to A.I. Above the $500 line, where quality and nuance trumps price, there's likely to be little, if any, erosion."

If you're not trained, if you can't sound authentically human. A.I., voice models, voice clones, are going to beat you up and take your lunch money. If you're making a living beating out Gramps and his USB microphone on Fiverr for $50 a holler, you're about to get a rude awakening.

Number Two: Invest in Proper Demos

This doesn't mean just hiring an engineer. A proper demo comes after months, not weeks or days, of proper coaching with a reputable coach. It requires custom scripts written just for you. It's going to be directed by an experienced coach and or demo director and produced by an experienced demo producer in that genre.

But don't expect to pay a couple or few hundred dollars. You should sooner light $500 on fire than pay $500 for what you think is a professional voiceover demo.

A proper professional voiceover demo is a significant investment and it separates the pros from the hacks. If you choose to be a pro, choose to BE a pro. Invest in the materials that will have the most impact to your business.

And your demos are at the top of that list.

And the number one best practice to grow your voice over business is: Learn To Market Your Voice Over Services

The overwhelming majority of voice actors rely on pay to plays, on online casting sites, on freelancer sites, and on agents. And the overwhelming majority of voice actors makes less than $40,000 a year.

To be a successful voice actor today, you have to take charge of your career.

You must learn how to develop and grow relationships over time, and a massive amount of them. You must learn how to provide a smooth, easy, fun, positive experience for your clients so that they return to you. Come back over and over again with repeat recurring work, and you have to learn how to start, nurture and grow those relationships from scratch.

That's exactly what we teach in the VO Freedom Master Plan, a proven system to grow relationships at scale over time that lead to more consistent booking, business, and revenue. For more information on the VO Freedom Master Plan, click the link above, and to get my Move Touch Inspire Newsletter for voice actors that comes out every Thursday, click on that link too.

If you learned something from these best practices, from these career killers, and you found value in this video, then help me get the word out to other voice actors with a like, subscribe, and hit that notification button so you'll be the first to know when we publish a new video. Alright. We'll see you back here soon. As always, I am super grateful for your support.

Thanks for reading.