laura@volaura.com

973.747.6800

  • Home
  • Demos
    • Demos
    • YouTube Bumper Demo
    • Commercial
    • Covid Response And Emergency Management
    • Radio Imaging
    • TV Affiliate
    • Narration
    • Audiobooks
    • Political
    • Tours
    • Character
    • Kids Voices
    • Baby Voices
    • Promo
    • eLearning
    • Explainer
    • Telephony
    • Government
    • Medical Narration
    • French Commercial
    • French Narration
    • Podcast
    • On Camera
  • Copy Writing
  • Studio
  • Clients
  • Coaching & Demos
    • Voice Over Coaching
    • Book Online
    • Business Coaching
    • Demo Production
    • Prepaid Scheduling
  • Blog
  • Contact

team

VO Sales Funnel Fail

July 18, 2022 by Laura Schreiber

How Something That Seemed So Right Could Go So Wrong

Follow PrioritiesWhen I first heard about the sales funnel for voice over, I was elated. Basically, their funnel drew me in and it worked instantly. I had several thoughts. First, I loved the idea of paying less for pay to plays. I thought by starting a funnel I could change my pay to play strategy. To be clear, I do not think there is a voice over reality in which pay to plays cease to exist, I simply wanted to be less dependent on them. Next, I loved the idea of positioning myself to be found by the people who were hiring me. In all my years as a full-time actor, I spend A LOT of time doing direct marketing, and we all know this can be a craps shoot, a big roll of the dice. The sales funnel was appealing because I had hoped that through the marketing expertise of  the folks I hired the people who needed me would find me and I could focus on what I love to do most, recording and coaching. It sounds great, right?

Perhaps I was also very willing to try because I very much liked and trusted the team I was working with. Rob is very well-known in the industry for his legal expertise and his daughter Mary seems quite savvy. I have put my own kids to work for me in the past and I loved that it was a father-daughter team and their vibe was great. I felt like we could make magic together.

Maybe I Jumped the Gun

In retrospect, Rob and Mary’s sample size at the time that I worked with them was NOT big enough. They had great success with ONE other voice talent who made back his investment in the first month. One. They also had their funnel running to draw in voice over actors and coaches like me, and it worked. Rob told me repeatedly that he had to turn the funnel off within days of running and as he was so booked and the he would have to do the same for me. Perhaps I should have waited until they had worked with more of these other talents to see what their results were before signing on for a three month deal. Or perhaps I should have opted for their one month option. I can say with certainty that signing up for a three month sales funnel with only one person prior was based on a lot of optimism and not a lot of numbers and I have never before in my business career made a snap decision like that.

So you must be wondering how a gal who has made spreadsheets for every single choice in her career, from who to do demos with to which microphone to buy, could make this choice so capriciously? One propelling factor was the lofty financial goal that Rob had set for the funnel. It was so high that I would have covered my daughter’s college tuition in one month, and my son’s by month four. When I heard the numbers, I felt determined to try.  Who could pass this up if I could really earn that much from the funnel? I do, after all, have goals that I am determined to reach and this funnel sure sounded like a quick fix.

My Actual Experience

Choices are ScaryWhile working with Rob and Mary was as expected in terms of their bed-side manner, and they were responsive and kind, Rob over-promised and under-delivered in terms of the result of the funnel. It was actually shocking. We would look at the same numbers, and they would have a completely different analysis of them. Keep in mind the funnel was supposed to bring in dream clients with large budgets. It was supposed to weed out the undesirables. This was NOT my experience. My experience with the opposite. My dream clients were no where to be found. I had multiple people sign up for calls and not show up. I sent follow up emails and texts to those no-shows.  After several weeks I had THREE total calls. One lady thought it was a job interview. One call was actually someone who was interested but did not move forward. The third was a man who had been on unemployed and just took a job as a janitor. He had a very limited budget and knew nothing about voice over and it seemed exploitative to even be talking to him.

Sadly, the funnel was not achieving its goals. It was disappointing. Rob, Mary, and I had a different perspective on how the funnel was working. We parted ways and I was thankful for the funnel to end. I lost both money and time.

I know another long-time VoiceOver professional and coach who started a funnel just after I did. Instead of directing her funnel toward coaching clients, she was going after automotive clients and attempting to market her automotive demo. Like me, she also stopped her funnel and parted ways with the team.

Final Thoughts

The most established member of our accountability group, Kim, has long cautioned that the VO community is always looking for “the next big thing”, and when it comes out we all jump on the band wagon. This happens every few years. It happened with voiceovers.com. I think, in the end, the sales funnel was like that for me. I was looking for the magic bullet, a quick fix. Instead I learned a lesson about listening to those who have been around and seen more. Next time I will slow down and wait for the hard data. 

Filed Under: Marketing/Branding, Voiceover Tagged With: direct marketing, Experience, Marketing, pay to plays, professional, professional voice actor, sales funnel, team, VO, voice over, voice over coach, voiceover

VO Success: When Motivation Meets Inspiration

August 30, 2020 by Laura Schreiber

My Breakthrough This Week When Walking my Dog

Laura walking her dogsSome days I wake up with a burst of energy and ready to get to work. Other days I am less energetic, but regardless, the outcome is the same: I do my thang in the booth. I’ll explain. I am pretty regimented when it comes to sticking to my voice over routine, and that routine enables me to balance both my mom tasks and my business tasks in a way that I am comfortable with. Most days follow the same pattern, with slight variation by day of the week. But some days, I am less “into it” than others. I was thinking it through the other morning and I thought this was a matter of inspiration. I was walking my dogs one day this week with my friend Melanie and she was telling me she felt the same way, that feeling when you just can’t get started. Melanie is a successful New York attorney who works extremely long days. While her career path is decidedly different than mine is as a working creative, this got my wheels turning. Both of us are working moms. Both of us work long days every day. And both of us build our household responsibilities into our professional goals. What, then, is the secret sauce? It came to me that while I often think of things only in terms of the presence and lack of inspiration, it is actually the ability to sustain the magic of the intersection of motivation and inspiration that makes success happen.

Common Challenges All Working Moms Face

So, let’s take a step back. It’s not just me as a voice actor who has a business to run that also has to think about how to feed my kids dinner at the end of a long work day. There are common challenges that every single working mom has to face regardless of our chosen profession and these challenges impact our work performance. Sure, these challenges vary depending on the age of our kids and the level of involvement of our life partner if we have one, but for the most part working moms still:

  • feed their families
  • manage household responsibilities including cleaning and home maintenance and repairs
  • have appointments like doctors visits
  • have errands like marketing, grocery shopping, household supplies, etc.
  • need to interact with school teachers

Just to list a few of these, and all of these responsibilities take time, energy, and emotional strength away from our professional responsibility. We can’t split ourselves in half. We have to be present for all of it, and there are only so many hours in the day.

Motivation vs. Inspiration

So, with so much on our plates as working moms, what keeps as working towards our end goals? Let’s consider the definitions of motivation and inspiration:

Definition of inspiration

Definition of motivation

For me, I could blog endlessly about my VO goals. I try to break them down and focus on immediate, short term, 6 month, 12 month, and long term goals. That is how I start to frame out the motivation. The inspiration has always been clear: it starts and ends with my children. They are my why. I was inspired to start my business for them. Everything I do is for them. Thinking of them and wanting them to be able to study abroad or open up their business helps me define solid financial goals that I am very motivated to reach. On a daily basis, I hold myself accountable with a google spreadsheet. On a weekly basis, I am accountable to my amazing VO Powerhouse Accountability Group. All of this is essential to spending time at this junction of motivation and inspiration and not floundering in between the two.

My Working Mom Interviews

A few years ago I also started doing a series of “Got Your Back” working mom interviews on YouTube. It occurred to me that I was just one of many and that maybe a lot of women had figured out this work life balance better than I had. I wanted to know what they struggled with and how they addressed those struggles to get it all done. These women were both inside the voiceover industry and beyond. One of them, Rebecca Gelman, has since evolved beyond her architecture business and now also owns an outdoor gear shop that boasts the largest collection of black bear collectables in our area which you can find at https://bigbeargearnj.com/. Talk about a gal who doesn’t waste a moment and somehow gets it all done, she is extremely motivated and Rebecca inspires me daily. All of the videos do! But if you are like me, you look to your tribe on those days when you are lacking, and, well, my tribe rocks.

https://youtu.be/hM_NIq1giFI

What Needs to Line Up for me to Meet me Goals

Life as a full time voice actor is not as simple as being found and just sent bookings. Yes, it’s great when a repeat client does that, but if I were to sit back and rely on that every day my business would cease to exist. I recall hearing Dave Fennoy speak in 2016, and he talked about a time when he was so successful he stopped working to grow his business. Do you know what happened? He lost his business. He lost everything and Dave Fennoy, one of the biggest names in voice over, had to rebuild from the beginning. He told us at this conference that we needed to work every single day as if it were our first day. That is what I try to remember. I never sit back and count on the work pouring in. Every day matters and I will continue to work my hardest.

I will still also take care of myself too. I want to teach my children that is well. I will blow out my hair, put on some make up, do my nails, and do pilates. If I fall apart, how can I take care of the needs of so many others? Worse, what kind of example am I setting as a mother. So here I am, hanging out at this intersection I realized I love being at but only just named. And now that I’ve found it, I’m not going anywhere!!

Filed Under: About Me, Voiceover, working mom Tagged With: accountability, booking, Dave Fennoy, distractions, focus, goals, momtrepreneur, repeat client, small business owner, solopreneur, success, tasks, team, VO, voice over, voiceover, working mom

Primary Sidebar

Loading

Laura Schreiber Voiceovers Recent Post

Recent Posts

  • Lessons Learned From Recent Live Session
  • How to Publish a Public Domain Audio Book
  • Having VO Industry Friends Matters
  • Lessons From My First Audiobook
  • Why Positivity Matters in a VO Coach
Laura Schreiber Voiceovers Categories

Categories

  • 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.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Laura Schreiber Female Voice Over Talent Contact Image

973.747.6800

laura@volaura.com

SKYPE: lauraschreiber324

ipDTL: Laura Schreiber Voice

Laura Schreiber Female Voice Over Talent Sourceconnect

LAURA IS REPRESENTED REGIONALLY IN THE UNITED STATES AND ABROAD.

©2023 Laura Schreiber Voice. All rights reserved. PRIVACY POLICY.

Voice Over Site by Voice Actor Websites  // Site design by notobelladesigns.com.