If you’ve been following my blog for some time, you know I tend to give a certain group of people a hard time. They are the people who, with barely any training, experience, or decent equipment think they are the new generation in voice overs.
Many of them seem to believe that doing voice overs is easy, you don’t need a lot of money to get started, and you’ll be up and running in no time.
When I warn newcomers about these things, they often respond:
“You’re just saying that because you feel threatened by new talent, and you want to scare off the competition.”
GOING HEAD TO HEAD
Scare off the competition? I am one of the very, very few native Dutch VO’s in North America. Apart from my colleague Hans in Florida, there isn’t anyone else from the Netherlands doing what I do. If you believe I am your competition, you are ridiculously misinformed!
Secondly, with forty years of experience, I do not feel threatened by newcomers at all. In fact, I don’t feel threatened by anyone, no matter how long they’ve been in business. I have enough work coming in each week, and sometimes hand jobs over to colleagues because my voice cannot handle the volume.
Lastly, I believe there are enough jobs for every talented and well-trained voice actor who is willing to work hard. Besides, there’s no one who talks the way I do, and who has a similar European background and accent. So, if you feel you can match what I do the way I do it, good luck to you!
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, I have a suggestion.
THE DEAF AND THE BLIND
Head over to a voice over Facebook group this afternoon, and spend an hour looking at newbie questions and answers. You’ll be surprised by the basic level of most inquiries and the laziness of the person asking the question. But your jaw will drop to the floor reading the uninformed answers that follow. The deaf are indeed leading the blind. [And yes, of course I am generalizing to make a point.]
And I should feel threatened by these people? Give me a break!
VO Pros who know what they’re doing make things sound easy. Because they have a lot of experience they usually work faster than beginners, and they charge more for their services.
When you’re getting your VO career started you must accept that you don’t know what you don’t know. You have to invest massively, and you’ll take longer to complete your jobs. That should give you some respect for those who already are where you want to be, as well as humility in terms of your own place in the community.
Or did notions like respect and humility leave the stage together with words like “please” and “thank you”?
You tell me.
So, what if you can’t compete on training and experience? How do you “break into the business?” For many newcomers the answer is easy. They…
COMPETE ON PRICE
Don’t get me wrong. Everybody shops for price, but it’s just one of the many factors determining a sale. It is our job as VO Pros to prove to the customer that the added value we offer is more than the price the client pays.
You see, the guys who try to compete on PRICE; the ones hoping to win the job by being the cheapest, don’t get it.
If the lowest price would be the determining factor in every sale, we all would drive KIA’s instead of BMW’s. We’d buy no-brand name jeans instead of Levi’s, and eat at fast food joints.
And, by the way, nobody would buy Apple products. Ever.
But as you know, that’s not the case, so there must be other factors customers take into account when they make their purchase decisions. One of those factors is -of course- the QUALITY of the product or the service, and this is where things get interesting.
THE POWER OF PERCEPTION
I should really say PERCEIVED quality. A large part of marketing and advertising is spent on convincing clients that they are buying high-end products they can trust. And you know what? CHEAP products and services are never seen as high-end and high quality.
Scientific studies have demonstrated the undeniable link between the price of a bottle of wine, and how it is rated by the consumer. Wines people believe are expensive, get a better rating than ones they think are cheap. Mind you, it’s the BELIEF that determines the evaluation, and not the quality of what’s in the bottle (unless you’re an experienced sommelier).
It’s the same with microphones. Many colleagues are convinced that a thousand dollar microphone sounds better than a three hundred dollar one. Most of the time I cannot hear the seven hundred dollar difference.
What’s the lesson here?
SURVIVAL OF THE CHEAPEST?
If you willingly put yourself in the bargain basement, you literally price yourself out of higher paying jobs. You’re cheap, and cheap can’t be good. If, on the other hand, your rates are, let’s say, at union level, you set your clients up to expect something highly professional.
Clients who pay more, tend to be more satisfied with their purchase. Cheap clients, on the other hand, are usually the biggest pain in the you-know-what, because they don’t think you are worth much.
The clients with the highest satisfaction rate are the ones who paid good money, and who believe they got a good deal. Your value exceeded their expectations.
That’s why I say: My added value is always higher than my rate.
Mind you: just as a higher price tag does not make a mediocre bottle of wine any better, charging more for a mediocre voice over isn’t going to make you sound any better either.
KNOW YOUR PLACE
But you know what? The people who need to hear this the most won’t read these words. I mean, why take advice from an old hand? I am so yesterday. In a few years I’ll be completely irrelevant as the Fiverr generation takes over, and sites like Voice Bunny rule the Pay to Play universe.
But don’t come to me complaining that there’s no money in voice overs!
Not every newcomer deserves a kick in the pants, though. There are many super talented freshmen (and women) who take this profession very seriously, and who are doing everything they can to turn this into a profitable career.
They are making sure that -once they’re ready to sell their services- they won’t have to be on display in the Dollar Store.
You don’t have to be a genius to realize that you usually get what you pay for.
Related Posts
Voice-Over Newbies: You Have Been Warned!
Busting Five Voice-Over Myths
Incompetent and Overly Confident
Whatever Happened to Critical Thinking?
5 Reasons Why You Should Never Become A Voice Over
15 Things a Voice Over Should Never Do
Seven Signs You’re Not Meant To Be A Voice Over
4 Things I Wish I Would Have Known Before I Got Into Voice-Overs
It’s not just the VO business. Newbies demand everyone drop everything and answer their most basic questions in every group. No searching, no reading, no in-depth research – just the noisy peeping of the baby bird just out of the egg – except that the other group members are NOT their parents.
There is a lot of gold – as well as a lot of dross – on those FB groups, and you have to dig in, pay attention, gather and compare answers, and put some real work in before you should ask questions. Should, anyway.
I haven’t yet found what I’m looking for but at least I’m in mild contact with other writers there.
I agree with you, and by answering these basic questions we reward laziness under the guise of wanting to be helpful. The things you get for free aren’t perceived as being worth very much. The things you have to struggle to find, you’ll never forget.
This is so relevant, I want to tell this to every newbie that pops in my inbox every time I post something. They think it’s my life’s purpose to handhold them through everything. And truly some of them, in fact most of them ask the most basic things, which could easily be found by searching online.
Absolutely. Spoon feeding babies will teach them nothing but the size of the spoon.
Can’t tell you how many times people posit the most basic of queries in the GVAN group, or directly to me, and I don’t have time to answer them. And when I next hear from them, it’s a few days later and they’re asking “Hey, did you get my message?” So, basically, waiting with baited breath to hear back from ME, and forgetting the existence of a plethora of search engines and resources already at their disposal. They expect YOU to be the detective and to be able to plug into you and withdraw. There are FAR too many resources out there anymore for you to fail; all you have to do is to look. I commend people starting out in voiceovers: it isn’t easy, and you have your work cut out for you! Just take the initiative. Learn, be proactive, do your due diligence, look, search, learn, and grow. Don’t hang your hat on any one person as your font of all knowledge. YOU go get the knowledge. And have fun doing it. You’ll own it more in the end.
The things you really have to work for are the things that will shape you as a person, and as a professional. The things you get for free are easy to toss because they didn’t have any value.
I Agree with most of this article, having been trained in radio years ago, I am sort of a newbie to VO as I’ve gone through only a year of training at this point, with a reputable company who helped me record professional demos and everything. I’m still in training but using auditions to practice and get better.
That said, as a newbie, I too get frustrated with the lack of depth in questions and answers in Facebook groups. I take the time and energy to do the research and I’m amazed at the people who don’t.
My initial instructor has a group and the questions there are mostly in line with our learning so that has helped. I wish people understood the level of time and dedication voice over takes. Thanks for the article.
One good thing, my studio is almost complete and it wasn’t cheap so reading this makes me feel a little better about the obnoxious expense I’ve levied upon myself 🙂
Congrats on almost completing your studio! I would advise against using auditions as practice.
I always say: “You practice to audition. You don’t audition to practice.” It’s actually the topic of one of my other blog posts.
You’re always spot on Paul!
I find it extremely irritating too, some people are so lazy!
It’s a little like “give a man a fish..” When there’s no work involved in finding the answers, there’s no depth to the understanding.
People take for granted what they can get for free. We should all stop enabling these freeloaders!
Paul. U kill me!! Lol– and U r absolutely right. I hope I didn’t come off that way.😱 If I did, dear Lord!! I apologize!! I’m TOTALLY aware of my place. And I TOTALLY respect and admire your time and experience all those years and I don’t think for a minute that you will EVER become irrelevant!! But you made me laugh 😂 cuz u is rite on, rite on! Have a great day sir,..
If I can make one person a day laugh, I have not lived in vain!
Which is why I’m adamantly opposed to the indie habit of giving away books for free – hoping people will like the next book in a series.
It trains readers to REQUIRE free. Bad start to a professional relationship, unless you are so prolific (and quantity is bad for quality) that you have plenty more of the same – and that’s ALL those readers require: the same.
FREE is worth exactly what you pay for it.
It will never stop. It is a vicious cycle of those wanting instant gratification fueled by those wanting instant credibility. And yes, it is in almost every creative profession. However, the thrill is in the hunt. Searching bulletin boards, product’s Q&A sections, Google searches. I refer a lot to the The Dunning–Kruger Effect. Simply put, if you don’t remember being at the top of the curve, you’re probably there right now.
Predators also scan the social media pages, tossing out “advise” leading up to offers of coaching or (heaven forbid) too-early demo production.
It’s the informed, intelligent, brave, talented, committed, focused, ethical and patient individuals that have a chance of success. Any one of those elements missing… well, good luck to ya!
Great article Paul!
Thank you, Cliff! You are absolutely right. The survival of the cheapest is a tendency I see in many creative fields. My wife teaches flute and piano, and she is trying to compete with hacks that have very little educational background or experience, undercutting her rates by fifty percent. After a year of terrible lessons and very little progress, the parents finally find my wife who has to spend the first couple of lessons helping her students unlearn bad habits.
Greetings from the Heartland Of Iowa Paul, that’s why you are my blog mentor..this was amazing! so good to hear from you and trust your tenacity drive, and passion for this business of voiceover is reaping,g its rewards for you….Thank you, thank you, thank you, I am just starting to market myself as a voice actor, I have to tell I had to become a backup artist, I had to really back up and start over since I was a product of a demo mill, I had to buckle down and take some serious coaching, and continue to seek out professionals, in doing so I now have a demo and a website worth marketing. It’s 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration. Always wishing you the best of successes Paul, take care.
90 percent perspiration, as long as you don’t sweat the small stuff! Always good to hear from you, Dave!