Variety. Is it the Spice of the Voiceover Life?

We’ve all heard the saying “Variety is the spice of life.” What does it actually mean? I take it to mean if you do the same thing over and over you can get in a rut and perhaps  ultimately get bored with what you are doing. Toss in something different and it tends to work as an energizer.

How does it apply to the voiceover business? As a voiceover performer, there are two basic schools of thought how to approach the business. Do one thing well and market that. Do a lot of things well and market all of them.

Do One Thing Well

I think this works when you have a truly unique vocal style and delivery. People come to you because of your proven record doing this type of delivery. You might be a “personality” and what they want is you – your unique style – your pacing – attitude – […]

2018-02-06T06:48:21+00:00August 23rd, 2011|Categories: Business, Marketing|Tags: , , |

Balancing Life and Work

The past few years have been interesting to say the least. After getting my mom to move across country in order to be closer to me so that I could start to help her as her need to be helped increased – I started to see a dramatic increase in personal time in my calendar.

As a rabid type A – most of my time has been spent working. As a free lancer and the sole means of support for my critters and my house – most of my time was spent working or marketing or bookkeeping or networking or something else that required large amounts of time in my “cave.”

So, learning how to carve out the time for my mom was a challenge.

Combine that with the down turn in the economy and there was a bit of a dip in work – which in retrospect was perhaps a good thing […]

2018-02-06T06:48:33+00:00July 11th, 2011|Categories: Business, Marketing, Musings|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: , , , , |

What’s Your Business Barometer Doing These Days?

My weather metophors are pretty lame, but after some later summer doldrums, there seems to be some sort of shift in the business climate. New contacts, regular contacts, old contacts – all are surfacing with interesting work.

And on the P2P site that gives you a inkling of if your audition has actually been listened to and if they liked what they heard (presuming the client submits that information), my Considerings and Likelys are outnumbering my Not Likelys. Of course the majority of the auditions don’t have any ranking, but in the grand scheme of things, it appears to be moving from cloudy to partly sunny.

But as regular work increases, it is hard to carve out the time to jump on the auditions before they are either closed (Voice123) or a 100 or so people have already auditioned (Voices.com).

Some of my producer friends/contacts have also been doing the “happy dance” – which is great […]

2018-02-06T06:48:54+00:00October 27th, 2009|Categories: Business|Tags: , |

An actual holiday!

No voiceover work this weekend! I have projects I can do – but no looming deadlines, so I was able to actually not record this weekend. No juicy auditions on any of the P2P sites, so seriously, I didn’t have to chill down the studio at all for 3 whole days.

Did I use the time wisely? Well, I guess that depends on your point of view. I took down the screens from the front windows. Hosed them down. Vacuumed and then scrubbed the window sills. Went to the gym a couple of times. Longs brisk walks. Laundry. And a daily trip over to a friend’s house to feed and play with her cat.

Picked about 50 pounds of figs and prepared them a couple of ways for a pool party. First I sliced the nice ripe ones in about 1/4 inch slices and drizzled them with Balsamic. Ah, yummy. Then I […]

2018-02-06T06:48:55+00:00September 7th, 2009|Categories: Business|Tags: , , , |

Friday is trash day

Friday is REALLY noisy around here. And even noisier every other Friday when the Black “trash” AND the Blue “recycle” bins are picked up. Prior to the trash trucks grinding down the alley – are the alley elves who push their shopping carts along looking for bottles and cans to recycle.

Then there is the Volkswagon that comes home at noon everyday down the back alley and idles while the garage door goes up – then revs up and goes into the garage. Add that to the random and scheduled selection of police and news helicopters and my frustration level definitely goes up on Fridays.

But for some reason, during a session, things seem pretty quiet and when something does rumble past in the alley or overhead it is only the smallest of interuptions.

So why do these interuptions bother me so while I am trying to get auditions done on Friday!

2009-08-07T12:27:04+00:00August 7th, 2009|Categories: Recording|Tags: , |

Was there a lesson to be learned?

Negotiating rates is the hardest part of my job. I much prefer to have an agent involved in this process, but more and more of my work comes directly to me from my website from places outside the range of my various agents. So more and more, I find that I am providing quotes. Add in the auditions from the P2P sites and a LOT of time is spent figuring out rates.

I have a set rate card for most projects now that I use as a starting point, but there is always something that makes the rate card difficult to apply. The nature of the material may require additional dollars (or not). Or the turn around time is short necessitating a rush charge (or not). The project may be for a really good cause that warrents a discounted rate (or not). The project may actually be more than one project, […]

2018-02-06T06:48:58+00:00July 14th, 2009|Categories: Negotiating|Tags: , , , , |
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