goals

I Practice What I Preach

October 11, 2024 by Laura Schreiber

Consistency Matters

As a full-time professional voiceover actor and coach, I think one of the reasons my career has continued to thrive and grow through the years is the consistency of my practice. When I work with my VO coaching students on techniques, whether the are voice over acting methods or the practical steps to running a day to day business, I pass on exactly what I practice in my own business. I encourage what I have found to work and hope to foster good habits in students. Conversely, I also share what has not worked in hope of sparing them what I already know not to be helpful. As solopreneurs, we wear so many hats and juggle so many balls. Setting ourselves up for success and holding ourselves accountable makes life much easier. So yes, this many years in, I practice what I preach as a coach and I do as I say in my lessons. Here awesome aspects I focus on regularly as both a professional talent and a coach:

Goals

Goal setting is pivotal to success in voice over. If you don’t know where you want to go, how can you possibly get there? As part of my business plan, I update my goals at least twice a year, if not quarterly. Anyone who has worked with me can tell you I love to help them flesh out there goals and we typically do this early on. When I do my own personal goals, I always post them in my booth and where I like to work upstairs in my house. This helps a lot with mindset. I think everyone has good days and bad, and just knowing your intentions is useful.

Accountability

I have been saying for years that I would not be where I am today without my accountability buddies! We have even presented together at national conferences. At present I am in several accountability groups. My primary one for all of VO is affectionately called “the VO Powerhouse.” We meet weekly and talk about specific touch points and present in order every week. We also chat about our lives. We tend to talk daily on Facebook as well about everything from rates to pronunciation to our families.

I have a mentor for my audiobook work. We meet monthly. This has been extremely helpful in launching that genre of my business. Again, I don’t think you can quite imagine what the possibilities are without being pushed by those who have already gone there.

I am also in an eLearning ensemble. We meet twice a week. We touch base about our marketing goals specifically. This group is great because we push each other and keep our eyes on the horizon.

I always encourage students to find accountability buddies. I personally think that meeting at least once a week is crucial. I think it helps to keep you going and to keep your eye on the ball. I think everyone in VoiceOver should be in one! If you are not and would like to be, you can look at conferences (which is where I met my buddies), Facebook groups, and at local VO meetups.

Craft

As in other professions, voice actors, regardless of how established we are, are never finished working on our craft or technique. And in truth, as industry trends shift, it is extremely important to stay on top of them. Having one on one coaching is still extremely joyful for me, and the last one I worked with at length was Sean Pratt. I love doing online webinars, like Tina Morasco’s library and Dervla Trainor’s Speaker Series. I also love learning at conferences, and conferences are essential both to being part of the community and to staying on trend in VO. While I am often in attendance as a presenter, I try to soak in as much as I can as there are experts across genres from all over the country and often other countries, so if you can afford to go, you should!

Marketing

Just as I encourage my students, having a consistent in-bound and out-bound marketing strategy, staying on top of marketing is crucial to my business plan. From blogs, to social media, to newsletters, all of it matters, both separately and as a whole, to establish my brand. Everyone who knows me knows I can talk endlessly about branding, but in truth, it all matters, a lot, and being consistent not just about posting content, but the quality and quantity of the content matters. It can be daunting to have to post and keep track of all of these moving parts regularly, while staying on top of auditions and recording booked work, but if you want clients to know you exist, it is crucial.

Daily Routine

Having a consistent daily routine and painting a schedule helps to ensure that important “to do” items don’t fall through the cracks. Whether starts with a warm-up, goes to booked work, then auditions, and cleverly weaving social media in, or whether certain days are time blocked for certain tasks, your routine is important. I tend to leave certain days for certain tasks. I also am passionate about healthy living and fitness, so I weave meal prep and pilates into my routine as well. My voice over career would not be where it is today of those items were not part of my schedule. When I work with coaching students, I try to be realistic with them about their schedule. Working moms with young kids have very different demands on them than empty nesters. Still, regardless of the phase of life, routine helps everyone stay on task.

Takeaways

When I coach, I draw from my experience. If I change what I do, I share it so others can benefit. If I find something no longer works, I share that too. I find the best way to coach is to draw from my years of booking and try to help my students build a solid foundation.

Mindfulness and Reaching Your VO Goals

April 26, 2024 by Laura Schreiber

Connection Between Mindfulness in all Goals

This month I decided to do a refresh with my amazing nutritionist team, Sugar Snap Shift. My cousin’s wedding is next week and frankly I was nervous about fitting into my dress! While their tips and tricks are under a tight NDA, I started to realize that in addition to feeling better and losing weight, I was actually getting done all of the items on my “To Do” list, something that I confess has not happened for a long time. What I started to realize is that mindfulness in one area, like health, seems to have a trickledown effect into all realms. I know seem to be able to focus much better on reaching my VoiceOver goals, feel like I am making progress, and feel re-invigorated. So let’s do a deep-dive and talk about mindfulness and VO goals!

Sorting Out Your Goals

There are some essential steps in reaching your goals:

Officially setting your goals or intentions matters. I do this multiple times a year and keep them visible in both my work spaces.
Be organized in your daily/weekly planning to make sure that you are meeting your goals.
- - Consider time blocking your schedule.
Set yourself up for success. Are you in an accountability group to remind yourself?
- - - - Do you celebrate and acknowledge meeting bench marks?
      - Do you have industry friends to help you sort out realistic goals?

Areas to Consider when Working on Voice Over Goals

As a full time, professional voice actor, one of the easiest tasks to push to the side is marketing and out reach. Recently, I have found that I am making an effort to get all of my marketing initiatives done! I have tried to be creative. I have teamed up with other voice actors to pursue new leads and I am trying to be creative in my approach, using branded content in a fun an engaging way. If you are excited and proud of your marketing, you are more likely to do it.

Be mindful of audition deadlines. You never want agents and producers to have to chase you down. If an audition is due at 10 AM on a Tuesday, and you could be great for the part, submit. Don’t miss out on a great opportunity because your timing is off! Make sure to continually submit high quality auditions on time.

Keep working on your craft. Voice over is an industry where trends change, especially in genres like commercial. The outside world very much influences what creative directors are looking for in our read. Make sure when updating your goals to continue to work on your craft through on-going coaching. Just like in other professions, on-going professional development is the norm in our industry if you want to continue to book.

Determination and focus come in waves, that’s normal. Being mindful is a skill that is honed with practice. We all have days when we are more motivated than others, but if you push yourself to stick to your routine, and make sure that you submit, market, and work on your craft, you will have more of those good days.

Feeling Good About Things

So I am on a journey to health and wellness with my nutritionists. I need their support because I can’t do it alone. Good recipes and good intentions are not sufficient for me, I have found that I need a paid team who has any back and helps me through each day. Even with this team, some days are harder than others. I have a life time of habits and patterns that I am trying to to turn around, and simply following them on social media is fun but is not enough to reach my goals.

When I work with the Sugar Snap team, I always start out by cleaning out my house of the junk. I get read of any chips or cookies or sweetened chocolate I might have around. I try to set myself up for success in every way possible. Somehow spending the money on my work with these gals gives me a greater sense of purpose.

Much of the same applies to voice over. How might you clean out “the junk” in your VO way? Might it be avoiding negativity or the ill-informed on social media? Why do we assume, in an industry filled with so many talented people, and now we have AI to contend with, that we can work through all of this alone? The simple answer is we cannot. In order to reach our VO goals we need: an accountability group, industry friends, great coaches, reliable engineers, supportive agents and rosters, and good habits. When all of that is in place AND we make an effort to follow through, only then are we lining ourselves up for success. In the final analysis, it is clear the mindfulness begets mindfulness, and mindfulness leads to finding your goals within reach!

What Custom Voice Over Coaching Content Means

January 9, 2022 by Laura Schreiber

It’s In the Details

After finishing back to back jobs, one for a repeat client I do work for monthly and one for a new corporate client, I happily snuggle up with my studio dogs to do what I love: continue lesson plans for two students. While I always follow a specific pattern or structure in the way that I teach, every, single lesson is unique. Why? Well every talent starts at a different place and has different goals. An actor with years of training who comes from a stage background or an on-camera background has very different needs than a talent who is a total newbie. Or perhaps you’ve worked in one genre and now you are coming to me to branch into a new genre like Radio Imaging or IVR. The details of each scenario matter so much, so having unique, custom voice over coaching content matters.

So What exactly Is Custom Voice Over Coaching Content?

“Custom Content” means that each lesson is created for you and is based on current voice over trends. You don’t have to worry about working on scripts from four years ago or studying trends that are no longer relevant. Instead, your focus is on what is booking today and what you need to do to make your reads bookable. The other reason this is extremely important is that sometimes we all need to work on certain skills longer than others. While some of us breeze through understanding things like subtext, others take longer to decipher what scripts are really saying and need to spend more time on the basics of script analysis. Put simply, you cannot move at someone else’s pace for something as important as the foundations of your voice over career. You need to be at your own pace, tailored for your needs.

What Should I ask About When Talking to A New Voice Over Coach?

Having a coach that you have a good rapport is essential. It is ok to ask:

Where do your source your scripts?
Do you keep a script library?
Do I have to supply my own scripts or do you supply them? This question might surprise you, but not all coaches supply scripts for you.
Do you teach a technique for working on scripts?
Do you have a strategy for organizing my scripts?
Do we work in different industries/genres?
Do you help me determine where my personal vocal attributes fit into the VoiceOver industry?

Why Does it Matter That the Scripts Be Fresh?

It matters a lot both that scripts be current and represent what is currently on the air and that they are real. The truth is, while some scripts that are sent our way as voice actors are beautifully written, many are not. And across genres, often they are filled with typos and are not even translated properly into English. If you are new to VoiceOver, and you are expecting the VO copy that you get to look or sound like what you hear on tv and the radio, you might have a good dose of disappointment coming your way. Or, you can learn as I have, to see this as yet another opportunity to provide a higher level of needed service to your clients. This is your moment to step in and offer them what they need. This is your moment to be helpful and point out, as a native English speaker, how a line might be re-worked. Should an entire script need editing, then for a fee you can provide that. But as a coach, it is my job to show you realistic scripts, not just perfect scripts. In order for you to be fully prepared to work in VoiceOver, you need to know how to tackle the scripts that are not beautifully written and do not follow the rules.

The other reason to understand the current sought-after reads is to best prepare for your demo. Whether you are doing a commercial or narration demo, you want your demo to have a long shelf life. You don’t want to pick spots that will age your demo. So, you have to be mindful of current trends and try to pick spots that won’t enable a client to say- “wow, that was done in 2022.” Understanding characteristics of what makes a strong voice over read is essential to success in this industry.

Tying it All Together with Custom Voice Over Coaching

As a coach, it’s my job to make it easy for you. It’s my job to guide you through the process and set you up for success. While there are never guarantees in any industry, partnering with a good coach that you feel comfortable with makes launching and boosting your VO business much easier.

Mindset Matters in Voice Over

November 9, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

Construction and The Foundations We Establish

Recently my husband’s parents bought a ranch around the block from us. They needed to gut renovate it and my brother-in-law is the project manager. It has been quite the undertaking, and my brother-in-law has done everything, from day-to-day interactions with all of the various crews working on the job site, to making choices about every material to use each step of the way. He has had to sort out bids and come up with various plans all while weather and kids pose on-going challenges.

This parallels running a voice over business in many ways. In voice over, like with a construction project, the mindset matters profoundly. The foundation of our business is ours to build, and to create by our own design. The intent of this blog is to think about a few key components of mindset related to voice over.

What are your Goals?

When you build a house, sometimes you are doing an update to make a space your own and sometimes you are doing a gut renovation. Either way, from the outset, you need to consider your goals for the project. In voiceover, knowing your goals enables you to have direction in your daily pursuits. If you know where you want to be, and if you have a clear vision for yourself, it is easier to work towards reaching those goals. And the goals you have might well be completely different from other voice talents you know. For instance, I do not do medical narration or audio books. Two of the women in my accountability group work in both of these genres, so their goals and their day to day marketing endeavors look quite different. As a professional voice over actor, I am very clear about my passions and where I want to spend my time. This is a key component of my mindset.

Business Mindset

Even though I am a working creative, from the start I have run my business like a business. Our mindset and the choices we make determine whether voice over is a business or a mere hobby. Do you want this to be your career or something you simply dabble in? For me, from day one, this was going to be a career. There was no other option. When I decided to pursue voiceover, I did so in lieue of returning to teaching, so I had the luxury of plunging into VO full time from the get go. Besides working full-time, other choices helped establish this is a business. Using a CRM is essential. This helps you track all of your outreach, your costs, your bookings, your contacts… all of your efforts in one place. I have blogged before about my experience using Voiceoverview, but I truly believe this specific CRM is essential to the success of my business.

Having an invoicing system and being consistent about it is essential to a business mindset in voice over. After all, it’s a business and you want to get paid! I know many talents who invoice weekly. For me, I invoice with the delivery of the finished audio for every single booking. When I send the audio, I send a link to the invoice. If you happen to use Voiceoverview, it integrates with Waves App, Freshbooks, and Quickbooks! Ultimately you need to decide how often invoicing will work for you, but for me I love doing it at the time of delivery because it means no job ever slips through the cracks.

Another aspect of a business mindset is having a business checking account. No one told me about this when I launched my voice over business, so I mention this often to try to make it easier for those starting out. I actually learned the hard way about 18 months in to my voice over journey. I tried to deposit a check at the bank at my local branch and suddenly they would not accept it. It was an eye opener, as by this point I perceived myself to be running a small business. So, if you are a solopreneur, you must actually also open a business checking account. This, too, is crucial.

Make Your Studio A Pro Studio

If you really want to succeed in voice over, and establish yourself as a professional voice talent, you need to have a professional studio. First, it is essential to maintain business hours. As a business owner, if you want to be available and accessible to your clients, you should have set business hours each day. For me, I typically work from 8 am- 6 pm, and schedule breaks for myself at my lunch hour for things like exercise classes or seeing friends. I also use my lunch hour to make myself available for consultations with new students or people looking for demo. But, the main point, is that I am available to clients all day, every day, during regular business hours.

Next, it is also important to have a professional home studio set up. I often have folks new to voice over ask me if it is really necessary to go to the effort and expense of buying equipment and if they can just rent studio space. I can tell you unequivocally that if you intend to succeed in voice over you simply MUST have a home set up. Further, it is not enough to have a basic home set up, you have to have a quality set up so that you produce pristine audio. This requires a booth with acoustic treatment, gear, and training in audio engineering so that you are capable of mastering your recordings. Once this is in place, you are ready to have your business up and running.

Mindset matters. Every choice you make matters. Run your voice over business like a business from day one.

What I Wish I Knew About VO Business When I started

September 8, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

As I reflect on the trajectory of my career as a professional voice over actor, I am blessed with how my cookie has crumbled. A combination of hard work, coaching, and making the right adjustments along the way has served me well. I however, am lucky, as I came into voiceover later in life. When I started in voice over as a second career, I was highly educated with an advanced degree. I’m also surrounded by professionals in my family. I happen to come from a family of attorneys and get more advice than you could ever think possible. That said, in talking to some newer voice talents recently, there are a few things that I wish I had known about the business side of things when I get started in voice over. Here is a countdown of my top 5:

5. Business Plans are Fluid

When I got started in voice over, I spent months developing a business plan. Little did I know that as my goals shifted, my business plan would shift. While my initial plan worked when I only had a few demos under my belt, as I began to target more genres and add multiple revenue streams, my business plan needed to evolve to address my growing and widening ambitions. While I am so proud of how I launched, I then had to learn to tweak and adjust to go after new goals as well. This ranged from social media to direct marketing to presence on pay to play sites. All of this was part of my business plan and as my target audience evolved so did my plan.

4. The CRM Matters A LOT!!

So different voice actors in the industry use different CRMs. As a voice over coach, I can tell you that it matters less which one that you use and more that you use one!! I myself started with nimble and switched to Voiceoverview. I love Voiceoverview and have interviewed creator and owner Dani States and blogged about that. For me, this CRM meets all my needs. Whether you use Voiceoverview, Upper Level, 17 Hats, or one of the many others, you need to be aware of several data points:

who you’re reaching out to, how often, and if they are replying
your income
your expenses
your audition to booking ration

If you are lucky, you can create reports that go beyond this. like how much of your work comes from repeat clients or from agents, are you booking from one pay to play more than another, where do the bulk of your expenses lie. These reports give you invaluable insight into future choices that you might make. Initially when I started in voice over I simply made excel spread sheets. I can tell you after years in the industry that the data that you get from a CRM is essential to running your small business.

3. Have a Separate BUSINESS Checking Account

As a soloprenuer, you need a business checking account. Even if you are not an LLC, you might be able to get away with depositing work checks or transferring money into your personal checking account for a little while.It is, however, better for you to actually have a proper business checking account. I’ll share a little story. When I started out in voice over I was luck to be added to multiple rosters pretty early on. One of those rosters sent me work weekly and paid me monthly. One day I went to the local branch with the check as this was before the days of mobile deposits. I had been depositing monthly checks from this client for almost two years in what I thought was a “business” checking account. It was a separate account that I had opened for my business at my local Chase. Somehow, Chase had just opened another checking account, but it was never designated a “business” account. Instead, it was just a second “personal” checking account. So that this does not happen to you, if they do not ask for you business’ legal formation papers, it is likely not a business account. That day, the bank refused to deposit the check. Instead, I had to gather all the documents I had for my business which happens to be an LLC and at that point, several years in, I opened both a business checking and a business savings account.

Now, you might be thinking, why does she have a business savings account to? Well, as a business owner we have to take out and set aside our own taxes. I pay quarterly taxes. Every single time I get pad, I set aside 40% into that savings account. So, I encourage you to have BOTH a business checking and a business savings account.

2. Save for Retirement- Especially if you are Non-Union

I wish someone had told me when I started, as I did not think of this until several years into my career. Think about all the bills you pay. Some day, when you stop working, don’t you want to have something for yourself? Every single month I auto deposit a nice amount into my 401k, and I am proud to say that I am setting aside as much as my husband does every month. Now, if you are a union talent, you will retire with savings. For those of us who are non-Union, all you have to do is set one up and then go to your bank where you have your work checking account and auto fund it. I have my 401k at Charles Schwab because I was advised that their fees are low.

Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day

When I started my business I spent a lot of money very quickly. I invested a lot and planned to be a huge success. While I was fortunate and success did come, expenses mount quickly. I know see ways that I could have spent less and spread out my investments over time so that as my business grew I re-invested in myself. Be mindful of your money. There are no guarantees in this industry. As you make choices, try to spend money in places that will likely generate business.

VO Workflow Tips From a Pro!

April 11, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

As a working mom, there are only so many hours in a day. In order to maximize my time, whether I’m in the studio recording or in my office space doing client out reach and marketing, efficiency matters. Over my years as a voice over professional, I can tell you that these tips have made a difference for me in terms of my work flow. While every voice actor has to find their own flow, my hope is that some of this helps you too:

1. Choose the DAW the Works for You

Depending on which voice actor you ask, you’ll get a different answer to the questions “What’s the best DAW for VO?” I have used Audacity, Adobe Audition, and Twisted Wave. I may be proficient in all of them, but I LOVE Twisted Wave. To be clear this does not mean that other DAWs, from Reeper to Pro Tools don’t have immense value, but for me, I am quick and good on Twisted Wave. It serves my purposes well. And when I have a client who needs total production with music, I hire a professional engineer to mix it down anyway, so I really can do all that I need to do on Twisted Wave. Some of my favorite features are the shortcuts, multiple effects stacks, and ease of file splitting.

2. Put Phone in Airplane Mode

When I am in my booth, I turn my iPhone and Apple Watch to airplane mode. I do this because when I develop a good flow, I do not want the phone ringing to interrupt me. I do offer one word of caution: if you are doing a live session and you coincidentally cannot connect with your client, and have all your devices in airplane mode, it can be quite frustrating if they are unable to reach you. So, while you may not want your phone in the studio for a directed session, perhaps before you silence everything you should make certain that you connect.

3. Do All Recording Then All Editing at Once

This is a wonderful tip that I got from he amazing Kim Handysides. Before I learned this, I used to record an audition, edit an audition, and submit an audition. Upon Kim’s suggestion, I started recording my auditions the same way I record and edit eLearning. I record all of the auditions I’m doing in a given block of time. I drop markers in them, edit them en masse, split the files, and then submit. It really does go much faster this way. If you have shortcuts in your computer for things like your name and your email, then naming your files will go even faster. If you do not know how to use markers and split files, learn today, it will change your life.

https://youtu.be/kI8lIKLN0Sg

Twisted Wave Tip when Using Markers (https://youtu.be/kI8lIKLN0Sg)

4. Plan Your Week With Your Goals in Mind

Like many in voiceover, I am constantly revising my business plan, shifting my focus from commercials to explainers to elearning to targeting specific industries. As I revise my plan, my goals change. While I have a planner or agenda that I love, I find that mapping out my strategy for the week helps me to keep my mind on the big picture. As auditions and work pours in, it’s easy to get caught up in the little things and push off the tasks that we think can wait, but in doing so, in pushing off those marketing emails and that LinkedIn outreach, we are pushing off the pursuit of our longterm goals. It is so important to always have an eye on your “why.” If you lose site of that, and you are just buys submitting audition after audition, you can easily get stuck in a rut.

5. Arrange Your Equipment for Efficiency

If your fan makes noise, only have a monitor in the booth, and put your computer outside the booth. After years of running to get ice packs, I got out my drill, made a hole in the wall to the desk, and hooked up a monitor. This has saved me so much time over the years.
You may a need dedicated printer for your booth, so that you are not constantly running to other parts of your house when you need to print work related items.
I have two pairs of cans, in and out of booth, so that I can edit or direct where I’d like.
Place hooks in thoughtful places. I have a hook for my cans on the wall which has been the biggest life saver. I also have a hook under my desk for cables. This has been useful as well.
Shelving can be quite strategic. I built a custom shelf for my preamp. It is perfect.

The point is that my equipment is arranged in a way that supports my work flow. From the angle of the monitor to the placement of the electrical outlets, it has all been done with efficiency in mind. It all matters.

After years in the business, I can say that I am constantly learning from my peers and improving my set up and choices. Be willing to try new things, you might be shocked at how it revolutionizes your work day!