Is your VO journey filled with a lot of angst because you don’t know what the next right step is?
I get it. The steps can feel like you’re navigating an M.C. Escher drawing.
As I coach other voice actors, I have encountered the same frustrations over and over from new and newish VO talent:
Confusion
Overwhelm
Frustration
Professional envy
Impostor syndrome
And—
A lack of clarity about the next steps to take—especially given the constant stream of shiny objects dangled in front of us. New microphones, conferences, expensive demos, and the booth that will make your life more peaceful so you can stop swearing at the sky every time a plane flies overhead or your neighbor fires up that lawnmower.
I used to have these same frustrations. Which led to me complaining about them over and over. Which didn't necessarily solve my problems.
It’s easy to focus on the things that we believe we have no control over, rather than putting our attention toward the next right thing that will move us forward.
Or to think about the end goal, which then leads us only to think about how far away from that goal we are and how we’ll never get there.
However…
The truth is, when you really break it down, there's a very simple formula for this business. And if you learn to recognize which step you're on, you can figure out what your next step is much faster.
Your basic question is:
“What is my next step?”
Are you ready?
Here are the four basic steps of your voiceover career:
Get coaching
Set up your home studio
Produce a demo
Book work (through an agent, pay-to-play, or direct marketing)
A couple of notes about this:
#1 should be sort of general coaching at first. Don’t dive into a specialized genre if you don’t have the basics down.
#2 doesn’t need to be perfect at first. You’re going to keep working on it and refining and upgrading as you go. Just get someone in the industry who actually knows their shit to sign off and say “YUP! Sounds good!” (I recommend Jim Edgar, Uncle Roy, Dan Friedman, or George “The Tech” Whittam…but there are TONS of other qualified folks) After the first round of going through the steps, Step 2 will just be "upgrade studio as needed or desired.”
#3 needs to be professional quality, but it doesn’t have to cost you $2-3K.
There are three potential outcomes after going through all of these steps:
You start booking.
Great! Keep on booking!
You start booking but you want to explore another genre.
Awesome! Reinvest your earnings. Go through the steps again for another genre. Get the specialty coaching. Get a demo for that specialty. Make friends with and network with people who work in that genre. Seek agents who actually get that work and direct market to people who create that work. Repeat this process eternally until you are doing work in every genre you want to be working in.
You aren’t booking, or you aren’t booking as much as you’d like to be.
If this happens, then one of these links is broken or not as strong as it needs to be to compete in the industry. Get a professional assessment of your audio, your performance, and your auditioning and marketing efforts by someone who’s been in the industry a long time, and be ready to hear their critique. Someone who knows their shit will be able to tell you if you need to fix any of these things or just give it more time.
I can already hear your objection to this last one:
"But I just spent all this money on coaching and a demo. Do I really need to spend more to do it over?"
This is the sunk cost fallacy in action.
Look: if you buy a car and it doesn't run, it's not going to get you to work unless you fix it.
You might be lucky and have a friend or family member who can help you out for free. But most of us will just have to take it to a qualified professional.
Attempting to DIY often just costs you more time and leaves you stranded until someone comes along with the tow truck. Metaphorically, of course.
Where this comes up most often in voiceover is with people who get sucked into demo mills or make a demo before they’re ready. The demo gets them nowhere, but they refuse scrap it and start over because doing so hurts both their ego and their wallet. But time is money too! Think of how many jobs that person misses out on while they waste time trying to magical thinking that crappy demo into something useful, rather than cutting their losses and getting to work on the next one.
I talked to someone not long ago who had done 500 auditions without booking a single job. There is definitely something off in that chain. Without hearing the auditions, I can't tell you if it's the audio quality or the performance. But I would bet the contents of my bank account it's one of those. Someone who knows will be able to point out where you’re missing a domino or two in your setup.
"But obviously those aren't the only steps! How do I choose the right demo producer? How do I pick the right coach? How do I get an agent? What do I write in my submission letter?"
You’re right.
But my sweet little dumpling, those questions are all (as Marie Forleo would put it) figureoutable. If they weren't, then no one would have those things.
That’s a blog post for another day.
Start with the basics. You have to figure out where you are, before you can figure out the path to where you’re going.
I offer one-on-one and group coaching to help you learn the skills that help you get unstuck and on the way to your dreams!
(I do NOT coach voiceover performance—check out my “Getting Started in VO” page for coach recommendations)