The UNFIXABLE MISTAKE You Cannot Make in Voice Over

There are metric tons of bad mistakes you can make in voice over. You can have no training or be undertrained. You can have a bad recording space or bad equipment. You can do your own demos. You can have a bad website.

All of those are fixable. No training? Start training. Bad recording space, bad equipment, bad audio? Totally fixable. Call Uncle Roy, George The Tech, Jordan Reynolds, or Tim Tippets. Bad demos? Work with a reputable demo producer. Bad website, work with a pro designer.

But there’s one mistake that is not nearly as fixable. Make this mistake and it will derail your voice over career for years.

What is it?

Working for bad, lowball rates.

When you’re starting a business of any kind, potential customers need confidence that you’re competent and can deliver the goods. When you put your services out into the world with a rate that is significantly below standard rates, that tells your potential clients that for whatever reason, you don’t value your services. So why should they?

Some things in life are commodities, meaning they’re basic goods and materials that are widely used and are not meaningfully differentiated from one another. Think electricity, or bread, or lumber, or computers.

Voice over is a service. When a business is seeking voice over services, they clearly state the service they require, the duration and the price they’re are willing to pay. In our business, this is the audition spec or casting notice. In effect, they create a requirement and invite qualified service providers to submit their proposal.

And here’s where you need to make a choice.

There are two types of service buyers in the world: price-driven buyers and value-driven buyers.

Price-driven buyers’ main criteria, above all else, is the price they are willing to pay for the service. Lowest bidder wins. Price-driven buyers don’t value quality and are always the most demanding of customers. They want the sun, the moon, the stars, the comets, meteors, asteroids, and all the space dust, even all the light you bring to your craft.

That’s right. They are giant black holes which will suck all the joy and profit right out of your voice over universe.

They will work you to the bone for little money and less, if any, profit.

Value-driven customers on the other hand, are pros who value pros. They value quality and relationships. They value not just the end-product, but the experience of getting to that end-product. They may have budgetary considerations, but they understand what professional service providers charge and the level of service they are likely to get for those rates.

In voice over, we often provide our services as part of a larger collaboration. For example, your VO may be used in a spot produced by an ad agency, and THEN, that spot is provided to the end client. The agency trades on quality creative and they’re not out to hire the cheapest VO they can find because they don’t want to look bad to their client. They’re out to hire the best they can find to make them look great.

It's the same with value-driven direct clients. Corporate video producers, for example, yes they have a budget, but the budget is most often appropriate because they have internal clients like the marketing department, that they need to do quality work for. Hiring some schmoe off of Fiverr is going to show up in the quality of the piece and their constituents are not gonna be happy.

Now back to you and your burgeoning VO business and the choice you have to make. You have to decide from the jump if you’re going to go after value-driven or price-driven clients.

You have to decide, more importantly, if you’re going to build a value-driven or a price-driven business.

Why? Because price driven clients don’t turn into value-driven clients. And it’s way harder and takes way longer to turn a price-driven business into a value driven business than it is to start one in the first place.

Does it happen? Yes, but rarely. It is the exception rather than the rule. And this is why it is so hard to fix, in other words, to transition from lowball, price-driven clients to those that value quality and are willing to pay for it.

Let’s think of this in the simplest terms. Would you rather do ten $50 jobs, or one $500 job? If you said ten $50 jobs, then good news! You passed the “sucks at making good choices” test.

Why, if you had the choice, would you work 10 times as hard for the same money?

I said, “If you had the choice.” And here’s the thing. You do have the choice.

You have the choice between taking shortcuts, not getting trained, using bad equipment, not learning proper recording technique, proper mic technique, not learning to be an actor, spending your career groveling for $30 a holler.

Or you can choose to play the longer, way more rewarding game. Do your research, start working with a reputable performance coach, educate yourself about the business, make connections with other professionals, invest in yourself, your gear, your space and your education and build a solid foundation for a business that will last you your entire career.

Where you can confidently command pro rates. Where you can work with clients who value you and your work and your talent. Where you can have a profitable business that you’re proud of. Where you can build relationships with clients and colleagues that will enrich your life.

I am sick to death of these so-called coaches, preaching this “have a profitable VO business - no experience necessary” bullshit narrative. They are preying on the stupid, the ignorant, and the short-sighted and they are doing it for one reason and one reason only – so enrich themselves.

They will tell you lies like “no experience necessary,” “in 90 days,” “working from your kitchen table,” “working only a few hours a week,” “3 Simple Steps to $300,000 (plus),” and it’s all complete, unadulterated bullshit.

Can you make $300,000 in VO? Sure you could. But less than 4% in the US do. And if you think they took just 3 simple steps to get there, you are horrifyingly mistaken.

If anyone attaches any number or amount of money you’re going to make from taking their course, run. It’s a lie. Not that you couldn’t make that, but to imply an if/then statement – if you take this course, then you’ll make $20,000 or $100K or $300k – is sleazy and irresponsible.

To me, it’s borderline fraudulent.

There are no shortcuts. This is not a get rich quick business. There are no get rich quick businesses and if you think there are, you are wrong.

It takes years to build a successful business. Not weeks. And that’s not the problem. The problem is most people don’t have the patience, grit, and guts to stick it out long enough to be successful.

They don’t have the drive, passion, and mindset to build anything long-term. They want it all and they want it now, and they literally have not built the beliefs, character traits, and skills necessary to stick to anything long enough to build something significant.

Being outrageously successful is done from the neck up. It’s a decision. It’s a choice. It’s a mindset that says NO MATTER WHAT, I’m going to learn and figure out whatever the fuck I need to figure out to make this thing wildly successful.

If you want to make money being a hobbyist, that’s great, that’s your choice. I have zero problem with that.

But if you want to build a successful business, you have got to do what it takes. And it starts with the choice to turn down $50 today to make $500 next year, then $5000, then $50,000, then whatever you decide success is to you.

If that’s you, I’m here for you as long as I can fog a mirror.

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Thanks for the conversations we have here on the blog, in the VO Pro community and the VO community at large. The more we talk, the more we listen, the more we exchange ideas and information, the better, stronger voiceover industry we can have.

We’ll see ya again here soon. Thanks for watching or reading.