Should I Get into Voice Over? 9 CRUCIAL Questions
Several times a week, people reach out to me, and I'm sure I'm certainly not the only one and say, “People say, I have a nice voice. Should I get into voice acting?”
My answer used to be, “Sure. This is a great business, and it's the best job I've ever had. And second isn't even close. Come on in!”
And while that's still true as much as it ever was, my answer has changed.
Voice over and voice acting isn't for everyone.
Some don't have the talent. Some don't have the drive. Most think it's something it's not - and that is a quick way to easy money with no experience.
So how do I answer the question, “Should I get into voice over” truthfully when I know little to nothing about the person answering the question?
Today I'm going to do just that. So, if you're considering getting into the voiceover field, if you're wondering if you're cut out to be a professional voice actor, I have nine questions for you that will help you answer that question.
Now, before we get started, I will say that I honestly believe that most people, the majority of folks can learn the skills necessary to be a voice actor.
I also think, like just about everything else in life, most people aren't willing to do what it takes.
Mike Tomlin, the great football coach of my least favorite team in the NFL, the Pittsburgh Steelers has a great quote. He says, “It's not what you're capable of. It's what you're willing to do.”
And so with that in mind, question number one:
Are you willing to spend the entire first year learning about the business, researching reputable coaching, getting training, getting really good at becoming a voice actor at the performance end of it, what some people call “getting lessons,” before you make your demos and before you make any money?
The common misperception about this business is that “it's just talkin’.”
It's not.
They call it voice acting because it's 1% voice and 99% acting. It's as hard, if not harder, to master then on camera acting because you don't have the luxury of conveying how you look when your voice acting. It's just your voice.
And if and when you do begin to audition, you will be competing with voice actors that have been training for years, if not decades, to get really, really good at what they do.
Just because you can swing a bat doesn't mean you can hit 102 mile an hour fastball. Thinking that you can jump into this business without proper training and compete is arrogant and delusional.
Question number two:
Are you willing to invest roughly $10,000 to get your business off the ground?
Look, every business has startup costs, and if $10,000 sounds like a lot, try starting a plumbing business, a Chick-Fil-A, a veterinary clinic, or anything else.
The good news about voiceover is that you don't have to dole out that sum or write that check in one big lump. You can dole that out over time, over the first year to 2 to 3 as you grow into your business.
What is that money for? Primarily training, getting really good at performing. Number two, demos also gear your recording space, your business setup cost your licensing and legal fees and everything else it takes to get going.
Now, not having all that money upfront to write a check for is fine. In fact, it's almost never done that way. But understand that you will have to invest in your business to get it off the ground and start reaping dividends from it.
Number three:
Are you willing to work 15 to 30 hours a week? Part time for 3 to 5 years before you go full time?
This is not a “start now and be a money machine in 90 days” sort of business, despite what certain snake oil salesman will tell you. It takes, on average, about 3 to 5 years to build a solid, reliable, stable, full-time clientele in this business. And that's after that first year or two of training, getting your demos made, getting your website in shape, building out your recording space, etc.
Now, if you have a full-time job already, or possibly maybe you're retired and you already have a time commitment, whether it's to your family or to, you know, taking care of your grandkids, whatever it might be… If you already have heavy time commitments throughout the week, you need to understand that voiceover is not something you're going to spend 3 to 5 hours a week on and expect to be successful. It doesn't work that way
This business, to be quite honest, takes a shit-ton of time and work to be successful and to build a full-time business.
Kind of like… oh yeah, just about anything else.
Number four:
Are you coachable and are you willing to commit to training for the rest of your voiceover career?
Look, some people just aren't coachable. For some that means they're really bad at taking direction and coaching, and for others they're just too arrogant to admit that they can improve.
Coach ability is a mindset. When someone is coachable, that means they will do whatever it takes to learn, grow, develop, get better. They listen to their coach. They commit to regular, purposeful practice and they understand that they're never going to know it all or be able to do it all perfectly.
They see themselves as lifelong, career long students. And they commit to consistently working on their craft.
Number five:
Are you willing to statistically make $8,000 a year, part time or $30-to-$40,000 a year full time?
Because again, statistically, that's what's going to happen. And those numbers are not made up. Those are directly from the State of VO Survey conducted each year by the National Association of Voice Actors: NAVA. And those are self-reported numbers by voice actors in the United States.
If you want to take a look yourself, you can look that up at NavaVoices.org/voiceover-survey.
The hard truth is that about only 27% of voice actors make over $40,000 a year, and only about 15% make $75,000 a year or more.
Why?
Well, first of all, there are more voice actors now than there ever have been in history. Thank you, COVID-19. And the vast majority are undertrained. Still.
So, there's both an oversupply of voice actors and an undersupply of well-trained voice actors going on at the same time. And so voice actors that are well trained and know how to market their services are killing it.
Question number six:
In addition to acting and performance, are you willing to learn how to record, edit, mix and master professional audio files and learn all the tech necessary to do that?
Look, it's okay to be afraid of tech. I get it. Some tech freaks me out. But it's not okay to think that you can get by without learning audio production and go on your merry way and never have to touch an audio file.
The modern-day voice actor is also a professional audio producer who is trained to record, edit, mix and master crystal clear digital audio files.
It's a specialized skill. I totally get that. And the truth is that the vast majority of people coming into this business, except for people who were previously audio engineers, have the proper training and audio production background coming into the business.
That's okay. What's not okay is to think that you won't need that training. At the bare minimum, your auditions have to sound professional and clear because you're not just showcase your skill as a voice actor. You're showcasing your skill also as an audio producer.
Number seven:
Are you willing to spend months learning to market your services so that you can not only do the work that you're trained to do, but actually go out and find the work that you're trained to do?
Now, if you've watched my videos before, you know that I teach marketing training to voice actors and you know when they come to me? Once they've been out in the world long enough to understand how hard it is to find work in this business with no marketing training.
Everybody thinks that because they're trained to do the work, that when they're ready and they've got their demos and they've got the web site that they can just throw open the doors and people will be lining up to just throw bags of money at them.
And they spend that first year or five getting their asses handed to them. And only then do they understand that they're only trained to do the work.
They've never trained to find the work.
Again, it's a specialized skill, just like audio production. So, it's okay that you don't have those skills and expertise that's coming into the business.
But if you don't get the training and don't learn those skills, your chances of success as a full-time professional voice actor are slim to nil.
Now, my insanely talented and successful friend Caryn Gilfry famously says that she has never once in her life direct marketed to clients.
Here's your problem: You're not Caryn Gilfry.
She's immensely talented, extremely well trained, and has spent years building relationships in this business. And unless you have all three of those things in spades, you need to direct market to clients.
Question number eight:
Are you willing to book 1 to 2 jobs out of every 100 auditions you do? Are you willing to wade through a sea of nos to get to a couple of yeses?
The fact is that even successful working pros book 1 to 2 to maybe three successful jobs out of every 100 auditions they do
So, let's say you've worked really hard to get your audition process down to, let's say, 10 minutes per audition. That means 500 to 1000 minutes of work, to book one job. That's about 12 hours to book one gig. And let's say on average, you make $400 per gig.
That's $33.33 an hour.
Now, that's not a bad living. That's about $67,000 per year.
But let's talk about the other 99 gigs that you didn't get. Do you have the stomach for that?
Tim Friedlander, who is now a wildly successful voice actor and also the president of the National Association of Voice Actors, famously tells the story that he didn't land even one gig in his first 1000 auditions.
I see people every week who don't get traction after two months and they quit.
It takes persistence. It takes consistency. It takes resilience and it takes. Tim Friedlander-level grit and self-belief.
And finally, number nine:
Are you willing to become part of the professional voice acting community? Are you willing to approach your work and your peers and your clients and your prospects like a professional?
This community of voice actors is like nothing I've ever seen. And if you ask most voice actors, they will tell you the same. You would expect us all to view each other as competition, as folks that we have to fight with to, you know, make sure that we earn our due place in the world, that we would keep our competitive edges, you know, close to the vest.
That we wouldn't share resources with each other, that like on camera and on stage and in a lot of corporate cultures, it's dog-eat-dog.
But in voiceover it's dog-help-dog. We help each other. We collaborate with each other. We cheer on each other. We celebrate each other. We laugh and cry and win and lose with each other. And that's one of the ways that we define being a professional in this business.
We approach each other and our clients and our prospects and everybody we come in contact with from a place of service, from a place of trying to help them, to try and help them solve their problem.
Hell, we even choose to hang out with each other socially sometimes by the hundreds.
We're not here to get. We're here to give.
And finally, one last question:
Are you willing to do all of that?
If you are, you're going to make one hell of a voice actor.
For more information on learning to market your services with the VO Freedom Master Plan, click this link and get my Move Touch Inspire Newsletter that comes out every Thursday for voice actors, click that link as well.
If this video helped you, if you think it'll help other voice actors, if you found value in it and like share, subscribe, follow and let's spread the word and help other voice actors make a real run at this business, because when it works well, it is the most fulfilling thing you could ever possibly imagine.
But you’ve got to be willing to do the work.
Thanks so much. I look forward to your comments here on YouTube, in the VO Pro community, and in the larger voiceover community as well.
Thanks for your support. We'll see you again next week.