If you’ve ever had a job outside of voiceover, in just about any setting, you’ve probably been subject to the dreaded Annual Review. This horrid ritual, if you’re not familiar, is one in which a supervisor is put in the unenviable position of often having to strike a balance between praising a good employee enough that the employee “feels” valued, but most often not so much that such praise would justify any pay raise beyond a meager 1-2% “cost of living” bump.

The problem with the traditional employment model is that the employer (i.e. the buyer) has traditionally had the lion’s share of the leverage. These are not mutually beneficial negotiations. They are the employer dictating what they will pay for the services the employee (the seller) provides.

If there is any negotiation, it usually revolves around an employee threatening to leave, in which case it’s often cheaper for the company to give a more substantial raise than train a new employee.

Businesses, however, don’t work this way. Your cable company doesn’t come to your house each year you provide a comprehensive review of the level of service and value they’re provided you and you present them with a take-it-or-leave-it meager rate increase.

Businesses, especially ones who sell to other businesses (B2Bs) set their own rates as the seller at whatever they deem necessary, within what the market will tolerate. They don’t go groveling to their customers every year and beg.

Many voice actors and freelancers, the overwhelming majority of whom have likely been employees at some point, carry this submissive seller mindset into setting and maintaining professional rates.

Of course, there are the low-ballers – the Fiverr and Upwork crowd and others, who believe that cutting rate is the only way they can get business. Often, they’re right because they’re untrained or insufficiently trained and hence not able to compete with professionals and provide real value to customers. Sometimes they’re wrong – they have the training and talent to compete and provide real value, but don’t have the mindset and self-esteem required to set and maintain pro rates.

Either way, they’re not competing for and winning business. They’re catching it as it slides off the table and into the gutter. They’re the dollar store.

As a voice actor and freelancer, you are a B2B business. You not only have the right, you have the obligation to set and maintain professional, market-tolerant, fair rates.

Obligation? Hell, yes. To yourself, to the industry, and to your family and the people you support.

Setting and maintaining professional rates does not mean that you don’t negotiate. Every quote is a negotiation. But a good negotiation is an exchange of value. If the client has a larger project or volume of work than normal, you may choose to give a bit lower rate based on that volume or project size. If the client has regular, consistent work to offer, you may be willing to trade a bit of rate to compensate for that consistency.

But the rates you set are the starting point and the negotiation or value exchange from there should be fairly even and mutually beneficial – the classic “win-win” model.

As you are able to work with a client, learn how they like to work, streamline your processes, and find ways to increase your value over time, you also have the right to increase what you charge for that increased value. The year-end/new year is a common time to have those conversations with clients.

Businesses don’t beg. Businesses understand the value they provide to their clients and charge accordingly. They understand the value of the relationships that they’ve built, and that in a strong relationship the value has to be evenly exchanged between buyer and seller.

The old phrase “ain’t too proud to beg” doesn’t apply. Pride has little to do with it. It’s all about providing value in exchange for being valued.

Do you struggle, or even disagree, with this mindset? I’d love to hear your comments below.