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talent

What Values Do You express in Your VO Business?

November 21, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

The Choices You Have As A Business Owner

As a professional voice over actor, we have the glory of being the queen of our own kingdom! And as we get to make all the calls on how we run our small business, we have the luxury of deciding which of our values we reflect in the way that we choose to run our business. As solopreneurs, our choices and the we treat others gives our clients a glimpse into who we are and what matters to us. Therefore, it behooves is to put a lot of choice into all of these decisions. For me, I focus on several core values in my daily business practices:

Treat Everyone the Same

Treat everyone the sameI consider the is to be the “Golden Rule” of voiceover! Whether a job is worth $200 or $2000, I treat every single client the same. If a new student books a single lesson or a five pack, they too are treated equally. First, I truly cherish each and every booking. Whether as a talent or as a voiceover coach, folks have a choice of who to work with. When casting, there are many who do what I do. Whether it is the conversational, millennial sound that I provide, or the fast turnaround, I am aware that I am not the only shop in town. Next, in terms of coaches, there are many wonderful VO coaches. Depending on your needs and what style you respond to, different coaches are better for different people. Again, I am aware that everyone has a choice. So, I treat every single booking as if it is my most important booking.

Value Others’ Time

Value timeOne of my values is respect of everyone’s time. In the last year, I made a shift to using Calendly to book meetings and sessions. Automating bookings has been a huge improvement not just to my quality of life, but is also a giant nod of respect to my own time. There is no longer a repeated back and forth just ti schedule a 20 minute introductory zoom. Or when a student needs to book a session they have paid for, I no longer waste their time waiting for me to confirm a booking. It all happens seamlessly, which benefits everyone. Another way that I try to be respectful of everyone’s time, whether it is in a Clubhouse or a live session, is that I always am mindful of how much time has been booked. If an hour has been allotted, I try to work within the hour, and not run over. I always keep in mind everyone has a schedule.

Don’t be Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

The big pictureTry to be giving when you work with clients. Don’t nickel and dime them, try to think of the big picture. When you go out to eat, and you ask for extra of something, how do you feel when the waitress immediately snaps about extra charges? Even if there are extra fees, there are pleasant way to introduce them, and then there is a tone that makes you seem like an anxious money grubber. Recently the traversing rod in my bedroom broke. I had to reach out to the local upholstery man, John, who had made them to come back and repair them. I had no idea how much he was going to charge and I had to call him repeatedly to beg him to do the work. I was worried that with each pleading call the price would go up. Instead, when he came to do the work, he charged me less than I expected. In this scenario, I was delighted by the quality of his work, his turnaround, and hsi fair price. This is how I want clients to feel every time they work with me.

Be a Mensch

Be a MenschMake it easy for clients to get what they need. Once you have a booking, turn that booking into a repeat client by making it is easy as possible for your customer to get exactly what they need by being genuinely helpful and kind. For example, I happen to have a lot of international clients. Often, the scripts were clearly not written by a native English speaker, and they need revision. I offer Copy Writing. If the changes are minimal, I do not charge. If the changes are quite involved, I send a helpful and caring note and suggest my usual hourly rate for this before I move forward.

It’s YOUR business, so at the end of the day you make the call on what feels right to you. Each interaction, each conversation, each policy reflects your values. Think about what you want to reveal and how you want to make clients feel as your work together.

Filed Under: Business Management, Voiceover Tagged With: automated booking, business values, calendly, copy writing, Golden Rule, sessions, talent, values, VO, VO Business, voice over, voice over business, voice over coach, voiceover, voiceover talent

A VO Business in Review: What’s Working and What Needs Work

December 6, 2020 by Laura Schreiber

There's No Reason To Look BackVoice over is a competitive industry, and being a professional female voice over who books mostly commercials and eLearning is something I am very proud of, but it takes daily effort- all day. Every day. I often work weekends. I often work odd hours. And every time I do, I am proud because it means that my small business is succeeding. In order to stay on top of my VO game, it seems like December is the perfect time to reflect on what is working and what could work better. After all, if I’m going to devote to much of my life to pursuing this passion, I want to do as well as I possibly can in voiceover.

What’s working:

Auditions:

I audition a lot. I have a pretty good audition to booking ration, particularly on pay to play sites. I once heard Bob Bergen, renowned voice of Porgy Pig, say that the audition is the job, and I understand just what he went. I also think that my auditions are working in the sense that I submit a lot. Twice in recent months I had clients reach out with direct bookings because they had saved my auditions. Although they had not hired me when I had submitted for that given job, they helpd onto my audition, kept me in mind, and ultimately booked work with me. In this sense, my auditions are going well.

Follow Up:

For me, follow up with both clients and prospects takes several forms. I always send thank you notes after bookings. I send both email follow ups and hand written cards, often with gifts depending on the size of the booking. Typically clients are delighted by this. In addition, I do quarterly check-ins with clients and prospects to maintain the relationships. These are personalized and relevant. I also do outreach, including my monthly newsletter and holiday cards.

Invoicing

I am good at invoicing! I have a great system, so I invoice when I deliver my finished audio. My invoice automatically sends a 30 and 60 day reminder. If it goes to 90 days the client gets a letter from my lawyer/husband. They hate that, but it works really well and I have no money outstanding at present.

Blogs

I blog regularly and am proud of this. I blog so that I am found. In the years since I started blogging, which I was very reluctant to do and did not do when I began my voice over journey, I have tippled my website traffic. In the search terms that I target, I continue to come up on the first page of google. Blogs are going extremely well.

What Needs Work

You'll Know When You're On the Right TrackAuditions

Yes, they were mentioned above. I need to improve my booking ration for agent auditions. I have fantastic regional representation who work really hard to bring me wonderful opportunities. I would love to book more of what they present me with in 2021. I send two takes, I listen to me reads to make sure I am sending my best work, but like I said, the voice over industry is competitive. I am thankful for the agent bookings I had in 2020 and hope to increase the percentage moving forward.

Outreach

Yes, this category was mentioned above as well. The problem is that the possibilities for direct marketing are infinite and I lose focus. I could do a much better job marketing myself. I need to focus on who I want to bring in and what kink fo work I want to regularly book and reach out to those clients with greater gusto. I had been doing it consistently, then work somehow gets in the way of this very important work.

Bringing In New Clients

I need to bring in a few more clients who will send regular work, monthly or weekly. I love the rosters that I am on and I need more clients like that.

Awareness of Changing Market Place

Especially in a year without voiceover conferences to attend, I need to do a better job staying on top of current market place trends. I do not listen to podcasts often, and I have my own perceptions which may or may not be accurate. I think having a better understanding of how the pandemic and election are shaping the marketplace is essential to my new business plan for 2021.

A Glimpse Ahead…

I am lucky that I am not new to VO. I am surrounded by talented women who are innovators and trailblazers. As I plan for the new year, and strategize for my goals ahead, I will be using the network I am so thankful to have built over the years to focus in the right direction.

Filed Under: Voiceover Tagged With: auditions, blogs, bookings, changing market, commercials, female, female professional voice actor, invoicing, outreach, small business owner, talent, VO, voice over, voiceover, working mom

Booking a Professional Voice Over Talent

December 17, 2019 by Laura Schreiber

How do you get the ball rolling?

In the past few days I have had a few different buyers or clients reach out to me to inquire about my services. One called from a block number. Another sent me a message on LinkedIn asking me to email their client with my rates and samples. Another emailed through the contact form on my site. I can tell you that all get greeted with the same enthusiastic response and all, whether the job is $200 or $2000, are treated the same.

If you are hiring a voice over actor for your first time, the ease of booking them and the booking process in general gives you a glimpse into how easy this talent is to work with. I have a set process that I use every time that includes quick responses, quotes, turnarounds, pickup/and revision policies, and more. If a talent is difficult to track down for the initial booking, it should be a red flag.

So, this is what my process is like:

The initial contact:

I typically respond as soon as I here from a client. If I get a phone call I respond by phone. Often if I get an email I will even respond by phone. According to voice123, my average response time is 11 minutes, but I typically respond as soon as I see a client correspondance as I understand that you need your work quickly. I take notes on the call so that everything that you tell me about what you want happens in the audio you are delivered. I also need details about the job itself including the usage and run of the job. That will now be addressed below.

Quoting the Job:

Many important details go into quoting a voiceover booking. I typically offer several options to my clients and let them choose the option that best represents their needs, but this is what I need to give a client a quote for their job:

  • The Script: I simply must see the script to give a quote. What you think of as an explainer my actually be employee training or an industrial. We need to also confirm the word count. The script is essential.
  • the Usage_ I need the client to confirm with the team what the usage is. For example, is it internal or will it run on social media? If it runs on social media, will it be organic or paid placement? For how long?
  • How long is the run? They are typically from 6 weeks to a year. I generally quote jobs up to a year and add a calendar reminder at that point in case a client wants to renew their media buy. I do not do buyouts in perpetuity.
  • Revisions. For jobs over $250, I include one round of minor revisions. If clients need more than that I scaffold that into the pricing.
  • Pickups: I also price out my pickup policy and always give the courtesy of delivering them as promptly as the initial audio was delivered.
  • Live of guided sessions: For live sessions I have Source Connect, ipDTL, ISDN, and skype and am happy to use whatever the client prefers! I literally use that line in my “Seal the Deal” email, and for any job over $250 I am happy to do I live session. I always record backup audio and the audio from a live session is considered final delivery, which is industry standard.

All of the above is factored into the quote.

Confirming the Booking

Once a client emails that they have cast me in a spot or booking, I send what I call me “Seal the Deal” email. This goes over all of the details thus far.

  • It confirms in writing that I have the job.
  • It confirms what they want for the booking.
  • It confirms what they need and when it will be delivered.
  • It finalizes any and all requests about the audio in terms of tone, pacing, whether the client needs a WAV or an MP3 or both.
  • If there is a live session it confirms those details as well.
  • It confirms that the script that I have is the final script.

Making it as Easy as Possible

In the end, it should be as easy as possible for the client to have what they need. It should be clear and prompt. The client should be overjoyed that they have found you and instilled with confidence in your capabilities because you are clearly on top of it. If you drop the ball at the beginning, how can they ever trust you. I want every first job to be the first of many jobs, so I take this system very seriously and want my clients to know that every single project matters.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Voiceover Tagged With: actor, booking, clear, contact form, hiring, live sessions, pickups, process, professional, responsiveness, revisions, talent, VO, voice over, voiceover

Make it Easy For Your Voice Over Clients

November 3, 2019 by Laura Schreiber

If You are a Professional Voice Over Actor, Be Professional

As a full time professional voice over actor, I am well-aware that my clients have options, so I want to make it really easy for my VO clients to work with me! I consider my business model to be client centered, I put their needs first, and try to put myself in their shoes always. Whether they are video production companies, eLearning content providers, or agents, I want them to trust when they book me that the experience will be seamless because I want to make this as easy for them as possible. Why? I want them to come back over and over again, so I want to be their go to voice in my vocal range. Outstanding service is what sets the bar higher. Pristine audio is a given. It is assumed that the sound matches either our demos or the audition we have sent in, so the way to stand out and have clients keep coming back is to give them what they need and make the experience a delight! Here’s what I offer every time:

Rush Jobs and Fast Turn Arounds

I assume when you hire me that you need your audio back as quickly as possible. Typically when you cast me in a project, you will immediately (my average response time is 9 to 11 minutes) get my “Seal the Deal” email that confirms all the details. This will confirm the rate, the turn around time, and any questions that I may have about the booking. Unless you tell me when you send me the booking that you don’t need it for several days, I assume you want it as soon as I can get it to you. I often have people contact me about RUSH jobs and tell me that they need it “right away.” To me, that implies they need me to stop what I am working on and record their project. For that I add a $50 RUSH fee. Otherwise, I typically will have your job back to you in four to six hours. If it will be longer, the exceptions are if I am on location somewhere and I let you know. Always. Right away.

Weekend Hours

I am happy to work on the weekends if you need something. I also have clients in different time zones around the world, so sometimes they send me something on a Friday but it does not get to me until Saturday and for them to have it on Monday it needs to be done on the weekend. No problem! I understand that you have a client on the other end who needs what they need, and I want to provide you with the finished audio. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me on the weekend if you need something. I am very passionate about my work and happy to do it!

Live Sessions at their Convenience

As a professional voiceover talent and gal who loves playing with gadgets, I am happy to provide my clients with multiple options for guided or live sessions! I offer Source Connect, ipDTL, ISDN, Skype, and Zoom. I have even had clients just ask me to put them on speaker phone. Whatever is easiest for the client is fine with me! I want my clients to feel at ease so that they can simply communicate what they want and have the finished audio that they need. That’s it. If you ask me if I have a favorite? Sure, but at the end of the day, the client has to be at ease and feel that they had the session they wanted.

Invoice Their Way

After I deliver the finished audio, whether I have self-directed or had a live session, I send an invoice immediately. I know some folks wait until Fridays. That is not my practice. I send an email delivering the finished audio, typically via drop box, with a summery of the audio, and in that email I describe the multiple ways I happily accept payment because I want to make it easy for my clients. I take credit cards, paypal, Zelle, checks, wire transfer, and more. Now, I have more and more eLearning clients that have specific invoicing protocol. This is fine! I simply send their invoice their way! The point is to make it easy for the client as I can adapt.

Be Client Friendly

In an industry where clients have choices, customer service matters! I want my clients to know how much I appreciate every opportunity, and I want to make it as easy as possible for them to work with me. I think back to times I have had to buy a gift for someone and hesitated because of the wait at the store or how long it took the clerk to wrap the gift. At the end of the day, I want my service to match the quality of my audio: outstanding is the only option.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Voiceover Tagged With: commercials, customer service, guided sessions, Invoice, ipDTL, live sessions, options, payment, professional voiceover actor, RUSH Jobs, Skype, Source Connect, talent, trust, turn around time, VO, voice over, weekend hours

How Much Are You Working?

August 5, 2019 by Laura Schreiber

“The possibilities are limited only by our imagination and determination, and not by physics.” ~ Mike Duke, PhD, NASA Geologist

THE question:

As a full-time, professional voice over actor, I get a lot of questions; but, the one I seem to get the most, is “So, how many hours would you say you work now?” Somehow saying that it’s a full time job has net been a clue. So, what I gather is that folks can’t imagine is how the work of a creative can fill an entire day, or perhaps weeks and years on end. Given the opportunity, I will happily, and enthusiastically elaborate and tell you what days are like for a working voiceover talent.

The Home Studio

Like most voice over actors, I have a professional home studio. This gives me the ability to accommodate clients in different time zones, not just in the Unites States, but abroad as well. I love getting started early, because I feel like I have gotten a lot done in a day. In truth a lot of my steady clients are on the West Coast, so I often go back down to record jobs that come in late after dinner as well.

Daily Tasks

The amount of booked work I have shapes my day. I typically record all booked work before doing anything else. If a big audition comes in, I will pause a job and record and submit that. While I record, I hydrate continually. I drink water all day long. I limit myself to one coffee a day. Once I am done recording actually bookings, my day is divided between auditions, client outreach emails, LinkIn follow ups, and general marketing tasks. I do try to do 20-40 auditions a day, and they come in from clients, Pay to Plays, and agents around the country. If a booking comes in mid-day, I stop what I am doing and record. For bigger jobs I typically have advance notice. For example, I did 20 videos on Thursday, but I new about them about 2 weeks in advance so that I could book out the day on my calendar. I do I lot of commercials and have a lot of RUSH work as well. I am always happy to do rush jobs. I understand when folks have deadlines, and I never mind getting audio right back to clients. Often when more booked work comes in, time on LinkedIn or for marketing takes a back seat. I tend to keep up with my client correspondence as that is very important to me!

Mom Life

It seems the more I get into a rhythm with my business, the less I feel in control of life at home. When my twins were small, they had all of my focus and attention. I was with them full time and I could spend all of my energy thinking about meals and school and their clothing. Now I worry a lot about their school work since they are in high school. But, our house is not as organized as it was. Our dinners are not planned. I often scramble to make lunches before taking them to the train in the morning. I am so so so thankful that the groceries can be delivered or I am not sure we would ever have any.

Another issue is that because I am a small business owner, even when I am driving my kids to sports or taking them to the doctor, I am still thinking about my work and checking for client emails. I can’t ever completely detach because there is no one else to man the fort. Since I am the business, if I disconnect, it ends. I find it challenging to find the right balance between savoring this precious time with my children, which goes entirely too fast, and catching the momentum of my business which I have worked so hard to build.

I do remind myself that my kids are learning from see me running a business at home. They see me working not just at nights but on weekends. They hear client calls. They get to hear and see my actual work. This all cushions the blow. So the house may not be perfectly tidy when the family comes for a visit. And we may have to get takeout more than we had planned. And I may often forget to go back out and put the cover on the grill.

My hope is that while friends that we meet for dinner may have natural questions about what it’s like to be a full-time working creative, my kids, the people who matter most to me in this world, will not have any questions because they see everything. I also try to talk to them about all of the issues that I grapple with and pose thought provoking questions.

So, I can tell you with certainty that a working voice talent has plenty to keep them busy! Odds are their more than 40 hour work week blows by and they have a hard time figuring out where the time has gone!

Filed Under: About Me, Voiceover, working mom Tagged With: auditions, bookings, Home Studio, Marketing, momtrepreneurs, passion, rhythm, RUSH Jobs, small business owner, solopreneur, studio, studio life, talent, VO, voice over, voice over actor, voiceover, working mom

Top Reasons to Avoid Cheap Voiceover

February 24, 2019 by Laura Schreiber

Sometimes you realize from the start of a project that you need to hire a professional voiceover actor. But other times, the voiceover is an after thought and much of the budget for a project is almost gone. Then the production team realizes that they need a voiceover talent. They scramble to find someone who is willing to work within their meager budget. They may have very advanced technology, spent a ton on instructional design or graphics, but now this very essential element is overlooked! Let me flesh out why it is better to go back to your client and re-budget for voiceover than to look for a cheap voiceover actor. You will never be happy if you hire a low budget talent!

https://youtu.be/NioTrxhw-C8

1.You want pristine audio quality and a cheap voiceover talent will not deliver that.

Why? Anyone who has invested thousands of dollars in their studio is someone who cares about quality. They understand that the quality of their equipment impacts the quality of the finished audio they produce and consequently would never settle for sub-standard rates. When I decided to work in voiceover full time, I had a custom studio built. I paid my contractor to coordinate with not one but with two audio engineers: George Whittam and Roy Yokelson. This way, the sound in my booth was designed from the start to be outstanding.

Over the years that I have been in business, I have made countless equipment upgrades. I now use a Neumann TLM 103 and an Avalon M5. I am confident that the combination of this microphone and this preamp give my clients pristine audio on every single job that I record. As some of my radio clients like the audio sent RAW, my sound quality is outstanding with these devices. Having made this investment in my business, I would never lower my standards by working with folks who under pay. I am so proud of the audio that I deliver, and as they are receiving audio completed in a broadcast-ready studio, the rates I charge reflect that.

2. You want a well-trained professional voiceover actor, and a well-trained talent will never accept cheap of low rates.

I always wonder if our clients think about this, but it takes a lot of training to go into voiceover successfully and most of us continue training and ongoing professional development. Top coaches start at $150 per hour and charge upwards from there. Imagine that for each demo we likely had upwards of 20 hours of coaching, and think about how many demos we all have on our websites! Those conversational, authentic, relatable reads that sound so natural? Well, believe it or not, we did not just wake up knowing how to do that! And just like our equipment, after investing so much in coaching, our voiceover rates reflect the level of training we have had.

3. You hire talents based on excellent demos, so why would someone spend thousands on their demo and then settle for cheap rates?

Our demos are our calling cards. There are trends in demos to be sure. For example, right now our first spot is supposed to be short. We are trying to show a change in emotion. Regardless of genre, the demos show case a variety of reads. This is true across the board. In voiceover, different demo producers are sought after depending on the genre. They typically charge well over $1800 per demo. Again, in order to thrive in voiceover, we all have multiple demos. So, if we are willing to invest that much money in ourselves, we need to book jobs that will enable us to build a sustainable income. We are not looking for a race to the bottom.

4. You want to work with a team player who maintains industry standards, and a cheap voiceover actor undermines the entire system.

Voiceover actors typically work alone, all day, in padded foam booths at home. Most of us are super friendly folks who are eager to be a part of your team! We are looking to build long term relationships and work with you over and over again:) But guess what, we are also part of another team: the voiceover community! And the voiceover world is pretty close knit and supportive! We are in constant contact through social media and we talk about rates all the time. We help each other sort out tricky situations and we share rate guides. Just as you want to hire team players in your office, you want someone with that mentality as your voiceover talent too! You would never want to work with someone who is willing to throw their industry friends under the bus for a quick $50, right? Wouldn’t that make you suspicious? Instead you want the talent who shares the professional rate guide and explains what their standard rates are based on.

Best of luck to you in your voiceover endeavors!

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Voiceover Tagged With: actor, Avalon M5, cheap voiceover, commercials, equipment, industry standards, narration, Neumann TLM 103, professional voiceover actor, quality, rates, RAW, studio, talent, training, voiceover

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  • Laura answers every correspondence with a smile and a prompt reply. In addition to RUSH jobs and quick turnarounds, guided sessions are available and Laura works hard to make every project perfect. Do not hesitate to call or email anytime :) The one exception to this is erotica. Should you need someone for adult content, all the best to you, Laura is not your gal, do not reach out.

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