What Does it Cost for a Voiceover?

HouseSeveral times a month I will get an email from a potential new client or an old client asking me how much would it cost to record – say 2 minutes of audio. That’s all. No additional details.

Intellectually I think we all know that this is akin to asking how much does it cost to paint a house. There are so many particulars involved that it isn’t possible to answer that question without asking a few questions in return. The more information you can provide in the initial email, the better, especially if you have a deadline that requires a quick response.

In the case of the house, you need to know how big it is. How many levels. How many windows. What kind of surface. How much prep needs to be done. What kind of paint. What kind of budget does […]

2018-02-06T06:48:05+00:00August 27th, 2015|Categories: Business, Negotiating|Tags: , , , , |

Down Time: Duties or Dilly Dallying?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t spend hours and hours in my booth, unless I am recording an audio book. Most of the time I am NOT in my booth. When you do mostly spots or short corporate pieces or eLearning, your time in the booth is probably a lot less than the time you spend catching up on Facebook.

But what should we be doing with the time we are not recording? My thoughts on that have changed over the years. And god help the person who has to unravel the mess I am leaving behind because of this change in attitude.

I used to be a lot more organized than I am now. You would think that with advances in software to make our lives easier, that I would have things a lot more together than I do. I have Outlook and Act and Quicken Home and Business […]

2018-02-06T06:48:16+00:00May 19th, 2012|Categories: Business, Musings|Tags: , , , |

CAN * DO * WILL (Never I Can’t, I Don’t, I Won’t)

One of the best things about VOICE 2010 was finally connecting face-to-face with people who I have know for years in the virtual world. One of those was Tim Underwood from TheWebvoice.com.

I have been listed on Tim’s roster of talent for years now and was thrilled to see that he would be speaking at VOICE 2010. His topic was “How to be a Go-To Talent.”

His packet of handouts was very funny and included space to take notes and do some doodling (in case we got bored – which we didn’t of course).

A few of the top things I took away from his session – besides a lovely photo taken after the session with Tim and two other of his “go-to” talent – Charlie Glaize and Amy Taylor):

  • Always have a Can, Do, Will attitude. Skip the excuses!
  • Be ready to say Yes! And […]
2018-02-06T06:48:39+00:00June 8th, 2010|Categories: Business|Tags: , , , , , |

Time Flies: Balancing Personal and Job Time

What happened to February!? OK, it is a short month, but really, I look up at the calendar and shake my head in disbelief that it is nearly the end of the month already. There are things on my To Do list hanging around from last December that I swore I would complete by the end of January! (Well, the mosaic garden table was supposed to be finished by the end of LAST January – that project is waaay behind.)

Balancing personal and business life is getting to be quite a challenge. On the one hand I am lucky to have a job that lets me jump up and put out fires. On the other hand, I sometimes wish that I had a job that kept me confined for 8 hours so that I didn’t have to jump up and put out fires.

I’d like to chalk up the passing of deadlines […]

2018-02-06T06:48:43+00:00February 18th, 2010|Categories: Musings|Tags: , , |

Critical Business Practices

Edge Studio sent out a great email the other day with 10 important business practices. I haev to admit, I KNOW about all 10 of these things, but find that one or more get bumped down the To Do list depending on work and play load. This is the complete email I received.

You might consider getting on their email list – you will be notified of their free tele-seminars and get other good free information such as this.  Was looking for a link where you could sign up for the email, but couldn’t easily find it – so here is the web address: http://www.edgestudio.com/careerbuilding.htm

1. DON’T BECOME COMPLACENT.
 
PROBLEM:  
It’s very easy to become complacent once you have clients coming in. You forget what it took to get there. You’re up to speed, even accelerating, so you stop working your gears.  BUT EVENTUALLY you start losing ground to competitors.
 
There’s an old saying […]

2018-02-06T06:48:52+00:00January 16th, 2010|Categories: Business|Tags: , |

Create Your Own “Luck”

I just have to pass along the great story told by Janet Ault, in the latest edition of VoiceOverXtra! Janet is a voice-over professional based in Scottsdale, AZ. If you are not perusing the business sections of your local papers, or reading a Business Journal if you have one in your town, or subscribing to online enewsletters that promote new businesses, account executives moving from agency to agency, etc, then you are missing out on potential new business. 

Janet landed a new account by being pro-active – proving that you create your own luck by having the right tools and finding the opportunity to showcase them. What makes this story a bit more unique is that it happened so quickly. In about a week, she went from finding a “lead” to landing a rather lucrative spokesperson job.

Read the whole article here – http://www.voiceoverxtra.com/article.htm?id=5i15kwkt

2018-02-06T06:48:53+00:00January 5th, 2010|Categories: Business, Marketing|Tags: , , , , |

You Just Never Know…

After all that ruminating about doing so many auditions and lamenting that most people were not casting off our demos (see prior blog post – http://isdnvoicetalent.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/ruminating-again-about-auditions/), I had a direct hit off one of the P2P sites that will result in an ISDN session this morning.

So, you just have to keep everything honed and at the ready…’cause you just never know the path someone will take to find and hire you. Keep your generic demos fresh!

It’s just one part of any good business plan. Scroll back a few posts to see some great responses from a couple of pros on some of the other business thoughts I’ve had over the past week or so.

http://isdnvoicetalent.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/more-on-the-business-of-vo/

http://isdnvoicetalent.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/tangible-and-intangible-assets-needed-for-voiceover-biz/

2018-02-06T06:48:53+00:00December 23rd, 2009|Categories: Auditioning, Business, Marketing|Tags: , , , , |

Evolve or Die…

Yes – it’s true – we must evolve or we will go out of business. I’ve used that phrase before (Evolve or Die) when discussing the changes that the performer’s unions need to make in order to survive, but it is also the premise of today’s Voice Over Today electronic newsletter published by Edge Studio. 

TO SUBSCRIBE: send a blank email to:  VoiceOverToday-on@edgestudio.com

They highlighted four areas that will cause you to lose clients. This is a message every voice talent (beginner or pro) should think about. Most of the folks I know do think about these Four Points, but it never hurts to have a reminder. So see below for the article – written by Edge Studio. 

**************

**Vocal Delivery: ARE YOU NO LONGER TRAINING?

Story: A while ago, one of our clients hired a student we had just trained to narrate a large series of videos.  They loved his voice. Recently we hired him back to […]

2018-02-06T06:48:55+00:00September 30th, 2009|Categories: Business, Marketing, Teaching, Technology|Tags: , , , , , |

End of the month paperwork

I have time this month to work on my end of the month paperwork – making sure that I have converted open sales orders to invoices – sending the invoices – checking on overdue invoices – making sure my bank statements balance with my ledgers.

Having the time to actually do all this in one concerted effort, means that work slowed down a little bit for me this week. How convenient that it would be at a time when I actually could use the time.

Of course, I am working on other things as well, and I have noticed other voice talent doing the same thing. A lot more podcasts being produced, live video chats and classes being introduced around the country. Ed Victor’s come out with several video podcasts and he’s working on a new reality show for about the voiceover biz. […]

2018-02-06T06:48:57+00:00July 31st, 2009|Categories: Business|Tags: , , , , |
Go to Top