So You’ve Booked It!
Congrats, you’re a working voice over actor and you’ve booked a gig. Let’s say its a VO for a commercial, and let’s say for the sake of this blog that you booked this 30 second spot on your favorite pay-to-play. Your stoked not just because we are always pleased with every booking, but because it’s actually a rate you deserve. Yippee. So, how do you take this one-off and turn it into a client that keeps coming back over and over again for years?
The Platform Matters
In general, the platform you are on matters! Some pay-to-plays and even many rosters do not allow you direct interaction with the clients. The client belongs to them, not you. Their goal is for the client to come back to their site, to their platform. You, the paying talent, are only a means to that end. Other pay-to-plays, in contrast, let you interact directly with your client. Do your homework and start booking on those sites. Wouldn’t it be great if the next time the client needed you they just came directly to you, and you did not even need to audition? And wouldn’t it be great if that happened over and over with multiple clients? That’s how you build a business!
Bending Over Backwards
So let’s go back to this client that you’ve booked on this pay to play for a commercial that you can interact directly with. Let’s say this job comes in on a Saturday and it’s a “Rush” job. Do you actually have anything else going on? Did you really need to re-shuffle your life to accommodate them? To me, if the client is already paying a nice rate, I would rather dazzle them with my super fast turn-around time and ease of availability than nickel and dime them. After all, how does it make you feel when you are charged extra for every little thing by a service provider? Instead, make it easy for the client to get exactly what they need as soon as they need it. Do an awesome job right away. Do you know what will happen if you do your job well and quickly? The client will be happy.
Building a Relationship
In the course of your email discourse, try to start getting to know your client. You can start with the basics: ask them how they are and share a tidbit about your day or your week. If you live in a different region, chats about the weather can actually be riveting. I happen to be a working mom, so I love bringing that into the fold. Holidays and birthdays are also great ways to get to know people. Studio pets are also a wonderful conversation starter. Then, when you speak next, circle back to what you already know.
Express Grattitude
Every job matters. Clients have a choice when casting and we are lucky to book what we book. An attitude of gratitude goes a long way. At the very least, send a hand-written thank you card. If you have an international client, send a virtual card. Let them know that you appreciate their business and act as if you are part of their team, because you are! Wish them well when presenting the finished audio, and mention your next collaboration. And in thanks. Sometimes, for larger projects, a thank you gift is appropriate. From agents to project managers to video producers to creative directors, it depends who you are working with and what the project was, but I have sent gifts ranging from Starbucks gift cards to chocolate to giant containers of popcorn.
Keep in Touch
Make sure to maintain a relationship with your clients! You already know they like you, they already cast you once! So, don’t lose contact. Sometimes newsletters are great for reminding them that you are still available. More personal quarterly check-ins are, however, extremely important. You can share a tid-bit of wrk that might be relevant to them as well. You can check out their social media and new content and engage and comment on it. It’s really important to be genuine and actually have something to say, but it’s also important to simple stay top of mind. Your voice many not be perfect for every project, but you don’t want to miss out on a casting simply because the client has forgotten that you exist. Be present. Engage. Be the talent they are thrilled to hear from.
They sent me the script and asked for my rate. They needed a RUSH turn around, but I was not charging them an extra fee for that. Since they were a repeat client and I was available I didn’t want to nickel and dime them. Anyway, I made a mistake almost right away. The voice over job I did for them was for an explainer video with usage limited only to their website. I assumed, again, I assumed that this was the same. I assumed this because the top of the script was labeled in bold font “VIDEO SCRIPT.” I initially quoted the job based on the last, recent voiceover work I did for them and the assumption that it was a video.
On the call, it was great to catch up with the client. As a full-time, professional female voice over actor, building client relationships means a lot to me, and phone calls like this always provide an opportunity not only to better understand my client’s unique and specific needs, but also to get to know them. How better to build a relationship than to actually speak?
Now, these questions should have been asked in my initial reply email when they were casting me. I should have asked them before I threw any numbers into the air. And as a long established professional voice talent, I should have know better.
I will never be in such a hurry, even when I tell myself it’s for the client, that I skip major parts of the information gathering process. The point of having years of experience in the industry is not only to serve the clients well and to provide an outstanding level of service, but is also for precisely these scenarios, when years in the industry should teach us to take a breath, pause, and look at what we are dealing with. I realize that if I could make this basic mistake, anyone can. So do yourself a favor, ask questions. Enjoy the dialogue and back and forth. Don’t be afraid to hop on the phone and clarify a few details. I realize the clients in this scenario could just as easily have been inflexible about the budget, and that would have led to a very different blog today.
It’s 2021. We’re still in a pandemic. We need what we need quickly. Laura gets it and she wants you to have perfect audio without a fuss at the click of your mouse. Let Laura know how she can help you!
As a working mom, I try to only work on weekends under specific scenarios: if booked work comes in that the client specifically needs over the weekend, if I get a direct audition for the weekend, or if it is something like my blog which I generally do while my kids are asleep. Otherwise, the weekend is cherished family time. So, if a client tells me they need something over the weekend, I am generally pretty sympathetic that they have someone on the other side who needs something and has a deadline. It happens that both last weekend and this weekend I had bookings come in over the weekends. While I was delighted about both bookings, the one this weekend was much more pleasant. I think the two bookings lend themselves very well to case studies on what makes an ideal voice over client to work with and what makes a client a little more challenging.
Earlier in the month a client I have worked with before reached out to me with a small budget for a local TV and Media campaign. After a lot of back and forth, we came to a price we could both live with. It took quite a while for the scripts to come in. Of course I finally heard from them Friday evening. I confirmed receipt of the script and asked Client A if Monday by midday was okay and they said it was needed over the weekend. Normally I would add either a “RUSH” fee or a weekend fee, but we had negotiated and the budget was low so I could not do that here. The other snag was that the client only sent one script. We had negotiated a bulk rate assuming that I was recording at once, and sending everything piecemeal was not a great start.
