by Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist
So you're auditioning as much as you can. You're marketing; you're connecting with the right people. But you're just not booking the jobs. Apart from panicking, what else can you do? Let's talk about that!
So much time can be spent fighting for the opportunity to audition for new projects, building relationships, increasing the quantity and quality of the opportunities that we have, and so once we have that opportunity to actually audition for a project after being shortlisted. It can be quite destabilizing if we don't book once, then twice, and then and again, and again, and again, and this is when imposter syndrome can really kick in. You start to question your skills, your ability whether or not all the stuff that you're putting out there to everyone is actually true of yourself.
You start to doubt yourself, and that, in turn, will start to affect your motivation in actually reaching out in the first place and creating more opportunities. So acknowledging that this cycle is not a good thing for your business and also something that we could all be susceptible to, certainly, in my scenario, I've gone through periods of this. I wanted to go through a checklist of things that we can actionably do to be mindful of when we get stuck in this rut of not being able to book to make sure that we're focusing on the right things.
Let’s move ahead without further ado!
Tip #1:
My first tip is to let go of needing the job. Obviously, you need to work. Otherwise, you can't call it a business. But you need to be mindful of this process—especially when starting out, making that big jump full-time as a freelancer can be incredibly daunting. Especially if you have no structure or backup when possible, balancing the beginnings of your freelance life with either some form of savings that you've accrued or some type of part-time work means that not so much weight is kind of resting purely on your success ratio in your freelance stuff and this will serve as a buffer during the inevitable fallow periods that plague the beginning of a freelance career.
Tip #2:
Number two is to limit destructive self-talk; as a freelancer, you are your own employee, and you need to treat yourself as such. Suppose you tour strips off another employee every time that they fail to convert or they fail to book a job. Then you'd think that that person was an absolute idiot and certainly not a good boss. You need to apply that same criterion to yourself. Constantly chastising yourself for not being good enough isn't going to help. That doesn't mean that you can't reassess the situation or be self-critical but always make sure that the criticism that you do give yourself is constructive.
Tip #3:
Number three is don't perpetuate a negative narrative. If you're constantly telling, not just yourself. But also your peers or your existing clients or prospects that you're not booking, then that becomes part of your identity. You're hardwiring a negative narrative that will only disempower. You all this will do are motivating you and also make you less attractive to collaborate with existing leads and clients.
Tip #4:
My fourth tip is to hold an action audit keep a diary of daily actions that you were taking to further your career. Is there anything missing? Are there areas that you are neglecting, and if so, why? The sooner that you can get into the habit of adopting an objective perspective on your business, the sooner you can start taking reasoned action. So if you're failing to proceed with essential tasks in your business, you need to identify that and address that as soon as possible.
Tip #5:
Tip 5 is holding a motivation audit. If you find that there are tasks that you know that you should be doing, but you are failing to do them, then you need to ask yourself. Why? What is making you not do the thing, and what can you adjust to solve these problems? If it's simply down to a lack of time, then you need to prioritize, adjust your time scale, or you need to outsource some things. Maybe if you're constantly feeling overwhelmed, then focus on just the one important thing that you can do that day.
Tip #6:
Tip six is to lean on trusted peers now. This is not your mum, and hello, mum, but people who are going through a similar journey with you. So that you can talk to them frankly about problems, you have to reassure yourself that you're not alone in this. As long as these peers are people you respect, then it's great to be able to hear what other people's solutions might be, whether or not they have any constructive criticism or thoughts or hints or hacks about things that have worked for them and if you don't have any trusted peers yet. Then I think this is a good time to probably get some people who are in a similar stage in their journey. But who is doing good work who is trying to do things in the right way? People whose opinions you can trust and get a proper objective point of view from.
Tip #7:
Tip 7 is to control the controllable. If you have more time because you're not booking this work, then use that time to update your websites, to make sure that showreels are updated, make sure that your profiles are on casting websites are all up to date that your cv, if you have a voice-over cv or equivalent is also updated how are your social and marketing channels looking are the things that you can update there or refresh there are you still consistently marking to new leads and prospects to make sure that more opportunities are coming in.
Tip #8:
Tip 8 is to adjust the end goal. If your target is not something directly under your control, then make sure that you're focusing on the things that you can aim for relationship building rather than the number of jobs that you converted in a particular month. Yes! An audition ratio over a period of time is a useful metric to measure your level of success and proficiency. But sometimes, you just have a duff run of auditions, and that's nothing to do with you. That's just part of the game.
Tip #9:
Tip nine is coaching and skill-building. Take this opportunity to check in with the coach to make sure that you're comfortable with your reads and approaches and that you're sensitive to any new trends that might have entered the market. Feel relatively secure in your existing skill base, then look about extending it into other genres to have more opportunities coming in.
Tip #10:
Finally, number 10, check the market. Double-check that you're targeting the right genre of voice over for your voice, not just the one that you would like to work intake stock of where current trends are where you sit in the market as a comparison and maybe double down on your strengths if there's one particular genre that you always do consistently well in then maybe this is the time to do the opposite of the. Last point and actually narrow down and focus on what your core strength is first and foremost so that you can worry less about putting money on the table and more about just getting a consistent level of work a bit of a chain going.
Wrap Up
So hopefully, I've provided with you a few different tactics to implement if you start to doubt yourself if you start to feel demotivated about the fact that things aren't working for you this month. It's the nature of the business, to a certain degree as a freelancer, that your booking ratio is going to go up and down up and down to a certain degree, so although it's always important to keep an eye on the metrics to see how much better that you are getting.
But resist the temptation to read too much into it and always be mindful of what action you're taking as ever. Thanks so much for watching. Please do like, subscribe, and spread the word about this channel. I look forward to seeing you next time!