Is Voice Over Rigged? What the VO Business SHOULD Be
I've got a question for you. Is voiceover fixed? Is it rigged? Are there gatekeepers involved?
Today I want to talk straight from the heart, and I'll start by saying that I am head over heels madly in love with this business we call voiceover. It's given me gifts I can never begin to repay. A sense of accomplishment, fulfillment, freedom over my life. Creative freedom, flexibility in my life, money, deep, rich friendships, you name it. Voice over has given it to me and probably more things than I could ever really list if I sat down to list it all out. I love this business more than anything I've ever done professionally. And second isn't even close.
That said, this business is not perfect. It has things that need fixing.
This is my vision for what voiceover should be. I have a vision for the voiceover industry and it's at the core of why this channel exists.
I see stuff in social media all the time about, you know, voiceover elitists and gatekeepers and how the system is stacked against you. And I want to talk about this stuff because I feel like those notions are dangerous and they don't serve anybody that really wants to become a voice actor.
First, this business is not fixed. It's not rigged. So take your conspiracy theory beach ball and go play somewhere else. There's no council of elitist gatekeepers that meets quarterly and decides who does and who does not make it in this business.
That said, a lot of voice actors, in fact, most voice actors, are struggling. In the most recent State of VO Survey conducted by the Voice Actors of New York City, 50% of us reported making less than $8,000 a year and 75% of us make less than $40,000 a year. Three-quarters of us are not making a solid living in this business, and that is a problem.
I've been a voice actor for the last several years and I've seen a lot of good people give up and quit on this business. And when I say good people, I don't mean any chuckleheads with a USB mic and a Fiverr account. I mean people that take the time to train, that are passionate, that work on their skills, that do everything they know how to do, to go out and get work. But they just find it too doggone hard. And sooner or later they give up and they roll over and they quit.
Not because they're not trained, not because they're not talented, not because they're not driven or passionate, but because it's just too doggone hard to find the work.
So why is it so hard?
First, this is a very competitive business. If you LinkedIn search voice actors and similar titles, you'll come up with about 26,000 results, just here in the U.S. alone. That number is actually higher because it doesn't count on-camera people that also do voiceover work. Many have been at it for years, even decades. And they are highly, highly trained.
Yes, it's very easy to get started in voiceover. It's not very easy to compete and win in voiceover, nor should it be. The cream should always rise to the top.
Then you throw in a global pandemic and lockdown and a massive amount of people tried to pivot to work from home and flooded the voiceover industry with very little or no experience and flooded sites like the pay to plays, Fiverr, the freelancer sites, Upwork, and so forth.
So voiceover is highly competitive, both in terms of the numbers of people in the business and the quality of the best in the business.
But there is some good news. Because of the explosion of digital media, there is more work out there for voice actors than there ever has been. And while there is a huge glut of voice actors on the market, there's also very high demand for good voice actors.
The second reason is it's so challenging to find voiceover work is this. For decades, the dominant way voice work was obtained in this business was through casting directors and talent agents, and most of that work was union work.
Now, with the advent of digital media, almost every company is a media company, and much of that work is no longer controlled by casting directors and talent agents. Much of it is controlled by pay-to-play sites and freelancer sites, but much of it is not.
And it's that work that's there for the taking, for talent who know how to market their services.
But that number is sadly very, very small. Most people come into this business without any sales or marketing background or any skill set that equips them to go after their own work.
And while as an industry, we do a great job of teaching people how to be voice actors, we don't do a great job of teaching them how to find the work that we've so adeptly trained them to do.
I believe that voiceover should be a meritocracy. I believe that if you invest time and money and effort into training, if you work on your skills every day, if you're driven and you're passionate and you're talented, then you should be able to make a comfortable living in this business as I have.
I believe that anybody can learn the basics of marketing and that it's crucial to have a system and a plan and a process and tools to grow relationships at-scale that lead to consistent booking revenue and income. This business is way too competitive to market your services by the seat of your pants.
This is why most voice actors fail.
This is why the odds are stacked against most people coming into this business. You simply don't have and have not been taught the skill set that allows you to go find your own work.
So is voice over fixed or rigged? Unequivocally, no.
Is it a completely level playing field? Also no.
If you don't know how to market your services, then the odds of you being successful as a voice actor are significantly diminished.
If I could give anybody and everybody the fulfillment and the joy and all the gifts that voiceover has given me, the relationships, the improvement of my relationships, even within my own family, the friendships, the sense of accomplishment, all of that stuff, I'd give it away all day, every day. I'm happier than I ever have been, and I wish I could give everybody that feeling.
And this is why I started this channel, and this is why I created the VO Freedom Master Plan, to teach actors the skills and processes they need to grow relationships at scale, over time, in sufficient numbers that lead to consistent booking revenue and income. To give a path to a better career and a better life.
I want to change how we teach finding work in this business, and I want to build a community of gritty, action-taking people that are making this transformation together.
If you feel like this business is hard, if you've considered throwing in the towel, if you're not making what you want to be making and you're not living the life you want to live in, if this video resonates with you, then like subscribe and ring that notification bell so that you'll be the first to know when we publish a new video every Thursday.
And if you want more information on the VO Freedom Master Plan, click here.
We'll see you back here soon. Thanks for watching.