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Achieving Work-Life Balance in the Voice Over Industry

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by Erica Rosales

Freelance jobs like voice over often promise the advantage of having a flexible work environments that makes you achieve a balance between your profession and private life. This is why many full-time freelance voice actors claim that being able to work from their home studios works the best for them. This is true to a great extent — as you no longer need to slip out of your yoga pants or pajamas to start recording that 3000-word audiobook voice over. 

However, it’s not always easy to balance life and career even if you are the boss of your own career. In fact, having a job that gives you a complete freedom can sometimes be detrimental to your time. Sure, it gives you a sense of power and control for being able to do your job wherever and whenever you want to. You tend to be consumed by a delusion that you are on top of your tasks both work-related and personal. By being able to multitask, you tend to maximize the flexibility of your schedule and create a thinking that you have a work-life balance because of the power to do personal things even during work hours. 

Little did you know, mixing up your non-work stuff with your workspace actually lead to more work hours being consumed. Then sooner or later, you’ll just perhaps feel like your life is already revolving around your job. So what actually is work-life balance and how do we do it in voice over?

What Is Work-Life Balance?

The work-life balance definition sets out to achieve an ideal balance between a person’s working life and private life. It is a concept in which the maximum happiness of an employee acts as the fuel for productive and fulfilling work, for which both employer and employee are responsible.

How to strike the correct work-life balance in voice over?

Today, work-life balance ranks as one of the most important workplace attributes — second to compensation.

Achieving a healthy work-life balance requires managing our professional and personal life in sustainable ways that keep our energy flowing, our minds and bodies healthy and our whole selves happy and content.

It means giving due attention to all of the things that enrich and fulfill us including work and career, health and fitness, family and relationships, spirituality, community service, hobbies and passions, intellectual stimulation, rest and recreation.

Here are the steps that can help you keep the balance between your life and your career.

Track Your Time

Analyzing your present situation is the beginning step in achieving a balanced life. Keep a time log of everything you do for one week, including work-related and personal activities. This data will serve as an eye-opener, helping you understand how you are using — and where you are losing — your time.

Determine Your Priorities

Read the rest of the article at The Voice Realm…

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2P or Not 2P: That is the Question

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by Joshua Alexander

CONTROVERSY!  FIRE AND BRIMSTONE!  TAR & FEATHER HIM!

Disclaimer: I already know this is going to be a long and most certainly controversial blog for those who have been involved in the voiceover industry.  Breathe easy.  I’ll say some things you’ll like; I’ll say something that will make you want to throw a microphone at me.  (Please throw 416’s or Neumanns only, as I can turn around and sell them to pay for my hospital stay.  Thanks!)  Either way, please know that I am not endorsing any one approach; I’m simply talking about what has worked for me as a voiceover businessman.  I’m fully cognizant that I’m putting myself out there on the chopping block, and going out on a limb.  So be it.  Here goes…

THE REST WAS HISTORY

Voiceovers.  It’s not what it used to be.  Is it worse, or is it better?

As J. Michael Collins stated in a recent webinar with Jon Florian on VoiceoverXtra, lower rates and fighting harder for good pay is “the new normal.”  The question here is what will you and I do to adapt and overcome?  The market has changed.

Many years ago, when puppies were the oldest animals, you’d get a call from your agent, hop in the car, drive to a recording studio, record in front of producers and technicians and end clients (maybe), and then return home and pray and wait.  Then, when you’re awarded the job, you hop in the car, drive to a recording studio, record in front of producers and technicians and end clients (maybe), and then return home and pray and wait…for a paycheck.

Now, with the advent of the Internet, home studios are springing up all over the globe, in closets and custom builds alike.  They can run anywhere from a clothes closet to a pipe-and-drape setup to a WhisperRoom or StudioBricks studio.  And they truly allow flexibility in recording and auditioning.

It used to be a situation where you could cock your eyebrow, give your head a little George-Clooney-shake swagger, and say “Call my agent.”  Now, the question looms on the horizon, especially in the state of Washington as it pertains to the National Right-to-Work foundation, are agents even necessary?  As VO Agent Alliance states:

According to the National Right-To-Work Legal Defense Foundation (nrtw.org), “a Right-to-Work law secures the right of employees to decide for themselves whether or not to join or financially support a union.” Each state has its own statutes regarding this issue and should be researched online or at your library or through contacting SAG-AFTRA directly. Right-to-Work states include states include: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming. The remaining states are considered “closed shops.” Nearly half the country falls under Right-to-Work, which more or less renders the unions, in our case SAG-AFTRA, somewhat useless.

So where does that leave us, represented and non-represented alike?

TIME TO BEAT THE STREETS

What does all of this mean for the hardworking agent-dependent voiceover artist?  Ultimately, it means that they need to look for more work on their own.

Voiceover agents used to be the gateway to voiceover work.  “You want voiceover work?  Gotta get an agent.”  Not so anymore.

Read the rest of the article at SeattleVoiceActor.com…

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Build Your Voiceover Business On A Loyal Client Base

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by Peter Dickson

Today, I want to talk a bit about CLIENTS. And more importantly, why you should keep hold of them. It’s always tempting to strive for more and try to get as many new clients as possible, but when it comes to your voiceover client base, it’s not always the wisest decision. It’s important to remember that a loyal client base, who like your work is always going to be a safer bet than a new client who you’re still trying to sell yourself to. More can also be less.

Most of you have probably heard of the parable of the wise and foolish builder. The wise builder builds his home on rock, while the foolish builder builds his home on sand. It’s not hard to guess whose house faired better in the long run. Your voiceover business is a fitting comparison to this parable and I just want to run through why I think retaining that loyal client base is the rock that a solid voiceover career is built on.

But even though retaining clients is extremely important, it’s still no simple task. It’s a problem for all service businesses, not just ours.

Retaining A Client Base vs Acquiring New Clients

Big businesses spend billions each year globally on marketing their goods. Service companies spend similar amounts of money on acquiring new customers. But what the savvy ones amongst them have realised, is that it is more cost effective and cheaper to retain a client – than it is to acquire a new one.

Most of the big businesses in this country employ people in what are called customer retention departments. It is cheaper and easier to retain the client who will then give you repeat business than it is to search for and acquire a new client.

This is why it is vitally important to look after your existing client base. You can do this most obviously by delivering good work and keeping your promises, but there are lots of other simple things you can do to keep clients happy and keeping you in mind.

Read the rest of the article at Gravy for the Brain…

 

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The 5 Types of People you Should be Contacting when Marketing Yourself as a VO Talent

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by The Voice-Over Roadmap

As a VO Talent and Self-Marketer, you may know the types of places you should be reaching out to in hopes of landing work (Video Production Companies, Animation Studios, E-Learning Companies, etc…) But do you know who the best people are to contact at these companies?

Sometimes you may find a number of contacts listed on the website for a potential lead, and you don’t want to send a mass email to a bunch of people at the company all at once, but you also want to be sure you make contact with the person most likely to hire you for a gig.

In this post, let’s take a look at the 5 types of people you should be looking to contact when marketing yourself as a VO Talent, in order of likeliness to be the person handling voice-over at the company, and thus, the best one to contact.

1. CASTING DIRECTOR

Many of the production companies and other leads you contact won’t have someone with this title – in fact, most probably won’t. But when you do come across leads in your marketing efforts that have a Casting Director on board, that is the person you want to contact.

This typically means that the company does a high volume of casting talent for their projects and therefore have a dedicated person on board to handle it. A Casting Director is in charge of working with the Directors and other creatives at the company to provide them with talent best suited for roles in their productions. They arrange auditions, are the main source of contact between talent and the company, and also maintain and update the company’s talent roster if they have one.

Different companies have different naming conventions and titles for their employees, below are some alternate titles and similar positions you may come across for Casting Directors.

Alternate & Similar Positions: Head of Casting, Casting Assistant

2. CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Read the rest of the article at The Voice-Over Roadmap…