A Ghost(ing) Story - Voiceover Style

A Ghost(ing) Story - Voiceover Style

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

A Ghost(ing) Story 👻

Whether you're a freelancer, consultant, or business owner, it can be dispiriting when someone suddenly stops responding to your messages.

Being available for last minute jobs is essential for my business.
Voiceover often comes near the end of the production chain, so I HAVE to quickly respond to clients' needs.

When that level of consideration isn't reciprocated,
I'll be honest, it really sucks 🤷‍♂️

I know as a service provider, I'm not the most important cog.
And I also know deadlines make things frantic and busy.
But I didn't know professional courtesy was so expensive?

To mitigate against it, I'd recommend:

1️⃣ Setting clear expectations and deadlines: Make sure your client knows what to expect from you and when.
This helps to establish trust and accountability.

2️⃣ Communicate regularly: Keep your client informed about your progress and any potential roadblocks. This builds a strong relationship and reduces the risk of being ghosted.

3️⃣ Follow up: If you haven't heard from your client in a while, don't be afraid to follow up with a polite reminder. This shows that you're proactive and professional, and can help to keep the lines of communication open.

Do you just take ghosting as a cost of doing business?

#business #videoproduction #ghosted #communication #freelancelife

Hey documentary filmmakers and producers - are you tired of the same boring narration?

Hey documentary filmmakers and producers - are you tired of the same boring narration?

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

[smooth sexy voice] Hey documentary filmmakers and producers - this blog post is for you 👇🏼

Are you tired of the same boring narrations? Give your film the spark it needs with a voiceover that's bold, funny, and full of life. Or dead and dark, like Dracula.

Yes, this is a shameless sales post, and the voice I’m ‘selling’ is mine.

So, where were we? Oh yes: Are you tired of the same boring narrations?
That's where I come in!

I'm all about bringing energy and excitement to your documentaries. No more monotone narrations, it's time to bring your story to life in a big way!

My goal is to help you create a film that not only informs, but also captivates and inspires your audience. So, let's make some magic happen together…

Who's ready to elevate their documentary game with me? 🎙️

End of salesy post. Now, please form an orderly line towards my DMs. Thank you.

#voiceover #narrator #documentaryfilm

Don’t look at what your voiceover competitors are doing

Don’t look at what your voiceover competitors are doing

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

Don’t look at what your voiceover competitors are doing.

Actually, ignore that.. LOOK at what your competitors are doing.

‘He must be crazy’ ‘This guy sounds unhinged and confused’

Yes, you might be right. But hear me out:

Look at what your competitors are doing - and then do things completely differently to them.
Because, how do you expect to stand out when you’re trying to emulate what everyone else is doing?

Especially when you’re copying what your competition is doing. You’re making it way harder for yourself than it needs to be.
Your competition might be miles ahead of you, their audience is used to their style, and they’ve spent months if not years building trust and brand recognition.

What works for them may not work for you at all.

I’m not suggesting to completely ignore your competition. Keep an eye on what they're doing, but don't copy them.

Stand out, be unique and make a name for yourself.

Are you more of a 'copycat' or a 'one-of-a-kind-unicorn'?

#unicorn #copycat #competitors #voiceover

Time to get my crystal ball out... Here are my predictions for the voiceover industry

Time to get my crystal ball out... Here are my predictions for the voiceover industry

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

Happy 2023! Time to get my crystal ball out...

The voiceover industry has seen significant growth in recent years and this upward trajectory is expected to continue.

Here are my predictions for the future of the voiceover industry:

Voiceovers will become increasingly important in the marketing industry, for brands to tell their stories and connect with their audiences.

More people will be using voiceovers to advertise, market, and promote their products or services.

There will be an increase in demand for high quality voiceover artists who can deliver a professional sounding product in a timely manner.

There will be more opportunities for voice actors to work remotely and freelance, allowing them to have more flexibility in their lives while also increasing their earning potential.

Voiceover and AI technology will continue to merge, allowing for more sophisticated and seamless audio creation. (this is a big one!)

Voiceover will become even more common in video games, allowing players to interact with in-game characters and environments. This will open up new opportunities for voice actors to work on various projects within the gaming industry.

More and more products, services, and apps will be created for voice-based interactions. This means that there will be an increased demand for voiceover actors to create the audio content used in these products and services.

Do you work in audio, gaming, or voiceover production? I'd love to hear your own predictions in the comments.

What's the best online course you've done?

What's the best online course you've done?

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

What's the best online course you've done?

Mine was Ali Abdaal's on video editing in Final Cut Pro.

In just over two hours, I went from novice to someone who could actually put together something that looked - alright.

Yes, it took a lot of subsequent practise.
But getting a clear overview of the key features, and learning those CRUCIAL keyboard shortcuts was a game changer.

The course led to the creation of my Youtube channel,
my own courses on Skillshare,
my video case studies,
my Linkedin video,
my Tiktok account (56k?!)

Learning some basics about video editing also made me a better voice actor. Understanding the logic behind cuts from a production perspective informed choices I would make in my vocal delivery.

And the best thing about it? I watched it all for free on a trial for Skillshare - though I'm now a subscriber and teacher on there too.

So what course would you recommend?

#onlinelearning #videoproduction #elearning #videoediting #skillshare

Can the people you surround yourself with make you a winner?

Can the people you surround yourself with make you a winner?

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

Can the people you surround yourself with make you a winner?

Ask yourself these question:

• Are there people in your life who support your decisions and help move things along?
• Do they help you dream?
• Do they believe in you and give you the confidence to keep going?
• Are they the kind of people who will challenge you to think bigger, work harder, be better?
• Do they help you set goals?

If so, then you have a winner’s circle of people around you!

Those are the people you want to keep in your life. They make you a better person and they will help bring out the best in you.

If not, it’s time to find them.

Because it's difficult to do it alone...

You need people who believe in you, support your dreams and want to help you achieve them.

They will be there with open arms to cheer you on when things are going well - and they will hold your hand when life throws a curve ball at you.

What's your relationship with your voiceover competitors?

What's your relationship with your voiceover competitors?

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

What's your relationship with your voiceover competitors?

You know, the ones who are always trying to outdo you and get ahead of you. The ones who are constantly trying to get their foot in the door before you do.

Or you think they do...

Well, here's a thought: maybe those voiceover actors are not your enemies.
Maybe they're just another person who wants what you want — to succeed, to be happy, to create something meaningful in this world.
Maybe there's room for both of you to succeed, and maybe there isn't.

But what if it wasn't about one of you winning and one of you losing?
What if it was more like a dance?
Or like a conversation?
Or a game where everyone wins but no one is really sure how?

The truth is we don't have much control over our competitors — but what we do have control over is the way we interact with them.

• We can choose to see them as enemies
• or we can choose to see them as allies,
• we can choose to fight them or we can choose to help each other;

Ultimately, no matter what happens, we will always be responsible for our own actions and results — not anyone else's.

So, try approaching your competitors with genuine curiosity... You might even learn something from them.

#business #competitors #voiceover

Intrusive Thoughts

Intrusive Thoughts

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

Intrusive thoughts…

We all have them.
Especially when it comes to ‘content’.

I’m not interesting enough
I’m not talented enough
I’m not entertaining enough

Each post risks showing up our imperfections.

But I’d argue that THAT is what makes the most interesting content.

If your content is just all about the ‘wins’, you’re gonna have problems:

1) Posting wins gets repetitive quickly
2) It stops people getting to know the real YOU.
3) It makes you LESS memorable.

The best content isn’t about you.
It’s about allowing your audience to see THEMSELVES within your story.

The ups and downs
The lessons learnt
The battle - the drama - picking yourself up and going again.

I’m not saying post only for pity or feel like you have to overstate.

But don’t be afraid to share the journey.
It will inform other people’s journeys.
Assure them that THEY are not alone.

That’s what carries real value.

#contentcreation #socialmedia #voiceover #storytelling #personalbrand

Do your voiceover clients give you room to breathe?

Do your voiceover clients give you room to breathe?

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

Many people come to me knowing exactly what they want.

- They’ve written the words.
- Chosen the music.
- They might even have recorded a temp voiceover to signal pace, tone an inflection.

The more of these things in place, the clearer the brief, the quicker the job.

All things for which I’m sincerely grateful

But it’s almost always leaving something on the table.

My most interesting work?

That’s done when all the information has been processed - then we forget it.
Leaving room for instinct to play.
Rather than plotting how a project will go line by line, I’m allowed to focus purely on the moment, the audience, the emotion - and then I play from there.

Unexpected things happen.
Inflections, pace and emphasis might not always go where they were ‘designed’ to be.
But an audience doesn’t respond to design - they respond to emotion.
And when every little detail is micro-managed, that can be the first thing squashed in a creative project.

I’m not advocating dispensing with briefs at all - quite the opposite.
But I love those clients who allow time for just one take with the handbrake off during a session.
It shows a willingness to be open, to engage creatively, to be surprised.

It makes me feel seen as a creative, not just a nice voice.

So how do you carve out a creative space?

#creativity #videoproduction #creativeservices #voiceoverartist #clientrelationships

Are Your Standards Different

Are Your Standards Different?

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

Tom Hanks seemed to be in every other film in the 1990s.
He worked with all the big directors.
He won consecutive Oscars for Forrest Gump and Philadelphia.

Yet in a recent interview, he said that he made just four 'pretty good' films.

Such a statement needs to be taken with a huge pinch of salt. Film stars rarely come as self-effacing as Hanks.

But that little line chimed with me about the creative endeavour.

Your clients can be delighted.

Your collaborators can be be blown away by your contributions.
(or not).

But when building a body of work, it's vital to have your own set of standards to hold yourself to.

Tastes may change.
Styles go in and out of fashion.
But you need to work from a place of awareness as an artist.
You need to be constantly interrogating your work.

How are you growing?
Are you stretching yourself?
What are your weaknesses and are you working on them?

It's this aspect of the creative life that keeps my own fire burning. I never want to be satisfied with doing the same thing again, just because it worked last time.

Because if you're not growing, you're stagnant.
Do you have a personal set of standards you hold yourself too?

Atomic Habits for Voiceover

Atomic Habits for Voice Over

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

The different elements that make up a voice-over career aren't mystical. You need to obtain a certain level of proficiency on the performance side, the marketing side, and the technical side, like almost any freelancer. But while the initial part of our careers is typically fueled by adrenaline. After a few months, the novelty of the new we can't rely on that alone to execute our daily tasks. 

James Clear, in his book atomic habits, affirms that, 

“Success is the product of daily habits, not once-in-a-lifetime transformations." 

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement getting just one percent better every day counts for a lot in the long run. And this is definitely a philosophy that I subscribe to. It's essential to set your goals, as I've covered in these videos already previously. But it's going to be daily consistent actions or habits that will carry you to that destination. Clear goes on to lay out a plan of how you can actually form and construct good habits. So I wanted to look at his four key points and then see how we could apply them to voice-over.

Are you curious to know atomic habits for a voice-over? Let's dig in!

Four Rules to Start Cultivating a Good Habit

The four rules to start cultivating a good habit are: 

1. Make it obvious

2. Make it attractive

3. Make it easy

4. Make it satisfying

So let's take a look at these in turn and see how we could apply them to voice-over? 

1. Make it Obvious

For the first one to make it obvious, you really need to be aware that to be vague about your intention is the enemy. Saying I need to do some marketing or I need to work on my performance skills is deliberately vague. They're amorphous, and they're certainly not smart goals, which I've covered previously in another video here. So we need to be specific so for marketing. I want to send five emails to new leads per day. 

Now we could just set a specific time to execute this task, and again in a separate video, I've touched on how I use time blocking to be able to manage my day-to-day calendar. But another way of doing this is by using habit stacking, where you attach your new habit to a pre-existing one. 

So, for example, if you always start your workday by making coffee and as much as I prize my hydration, I do that more often than not. Then you can say after I make my coffee, I will send my five emails, and then you could start chaining various habits together. So after I finish my recordings for the day, I will learn one new keyboard shortcut on my door, or after I’ve checked my Instagram, I will make sure to comment on three other people’s content. Notice also the benefit of linking these habits by location. 

So if you’re doing one habit on your phone already, then make your other habit also on your phone. If it’s a computer-related task, then link it to a computer-related task and so on. If you’re stuck thinking about what useful habits you want to cultivate in the first place, then think about where you spend your time and where. Therefore, a new habit might suggest itself from that exact location. 

1. Make it Attractive

The second rule is to make your new habit attractive. It is where a technique called temptation bundling comes in. Essentially, as an incentive for doing your new habit, you attach it to another habit that you really want to do. As a personal example, I like playing beat saber for half an hour in the morning because it’s a good cardio workout. 

But to do that, I always have to go and work out with my free weights beforehand. But more specifically, during my workday, I’ve paired doing my work emails with playing FIFA on the Playstation. If I don’t do my emails, I won’t be able to further or bury United’s quest for European domination and that stakes for you. 

1. Make it Easy

The third rule is to make your new habit as easy as possible, what James clear calls a gateway habit, rather than setting a really ambitious goal for you to send a certain number of emails or learn a certain number of keyboard shortcuts. Instead, when you’re first implementing a new habit, only do it for one minute a day. So if we apply that approach to email marketing in one minute, you might have enough time to Google a specific company and maybe identify who it is that you reach out to and maybe log their details and that’s it and when establishing that habit that’s all that you need to do. 

And yes, that is ridiculously simple, but that’s why you also have no excuse not to do it. Of course, we want to extend the amount of time you spend on that habit, but the first most crucial thing is to be consistent. 

1. Make it Satisfying

And the final rule to tie it all together is to make it satisfying now clear affirms that the human brain is evolved to prioritize immediate gratification over delayed satisfaction. So what is immediately rewarded is more likely to be repeated. And as we’ve already seen, temptation bundling is a way of attaching gratification to execution. But another way of getting that immediately successful hit is habit tracking. 

If you’ve ever consistently filled in a journal or if you’ve ever continued to log in your exercise process, or if you’ve ever used one of those language apps that congratulates you on chaining together consecutive days of exercise or practice. Then you’ll have sense the reward that gives you knowing that you’re not breaking the chain. 

Of course, life will interrupt at some point, and all chains will be broken but when that eventuality occurs clear affirms the importance of never missing twice. You get back on the metaphorical horse the very next day, and you reaffirm the identity that you’re trying to cultivate even if the time you actually spend doing the habit is a fraction of your normal time. 

I found this personally myself when doing my weight training. It’s been the bad workouts where I’ve only done it for half my normal period of time, and my form has been bad, and I’ve really felt kind of icky about it, but I’ve still done it. And therefore, I felt that I’m someone who does work out five days a week regardless of how good that quality of workout actually is rather than entering into a spiral of, oh, I’ve missed a workout. Therefore, I’m not my best self so. Consequently, I might as well give up entirely. 

So in voiceover, even if circumstances mean that you have very limited time to get back on the wagon, just getting back to doing even one minute of a vocal warm-up and one minute of marketing still reaffirms your identity as a voice actor who does marketing and warms up vocally every day. 

Now it’s this final point that I personally found most revelatory for my career switching from a voice actor who wants x, y, and z to one who is x y and z. I take huge pride in the identity that my habits have given me, so I’m more motivated to maintain them. Of course, this is a much abbreviated version of what’s covered in James clear’s book, and I do recommend that you read it yourself. 

Conclusion

Hopefully, I’ve demonstrated how you could start applying this to a voice actor’s career, and you’ve got a few new techniques that you can start playing around with. If you found this helpful video, please do like subscribe and share. And I look forward to seeing you next time!

Your Voiceover USP

Beyond Voiceover:

What Is Your Voiceover Unique Selling Point?

Running a business is about solving clients’ pain points. And voice over is no different whenever you get the first inquiry as a voice-over artist; the questions usually are going to involve; 

• How soon can you get me the voice?

• How much is it going to cost?

• And how good is the final quality going to be?

• Implicitly asking for social proof of what your previous clients are?

• And what your recording setup is like as well?

Major Question

But aside from these fundamental areas, what else can we do in a client-centric way to stand out from another voice-over actor? 

Let’s dig in!

Satisfactory Solution

Well, I would start by saying that more audio and voice-over content is being used by a whole variety of different companies and organizations. The traditional production pipeline of voice over going from voice talent to sound engineer to the client is being disrupted. A lot of startups are creating their content rather than outsourcing it. And a lot of existing companies are bringing in their content creation and creating their own marketing departments. And these developments give us, as service providers, an opportunity to cater to a whole host of new pain points as a result. 

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that you take your focus entirely off voice-over and therefore dilute your primary offering as a result, but having an appreciation that your narration doesn’t exist purely in a vacuum and that you can actually offer lots of complimentary services as well. That’s what’s going to make you really stand out from the crowd. I’d suggest that rather than purely focusing on those pretty prominent offerings, voice-overs should offer, i.e., outstanding recording quality and knowing how to act, and being able to deliver fast. Instead, we should really think about those things that run parallel or are entirely outside of our voice-over offering, which might also be helpful for the client’s needs. 

Offering- That can Prove Beneficial for You

I’d start by brainstorming all the different types of tasks you’ve had to execute, whether voice-over or any other job you previously might have. Then you could see if any of those additional tasks that ostensibly have nothing to do with voice-over might actually relate to your client offering somehow. 

So just to list through a couple of very obvious offerings; firstly, we obviously can record with our broadcast-quality audio, etc. Secondly, we might be able to connect with people via zoom or source connect or whatever so that people can give us live direction. So that’s another valuable thing. 

Maybe if you can include video direction when you’re talking about remote setups that might be a nice additional thing because some directors like to see what you’re doing with your body. 

But then we can move on to something like usually editing, especially when you’re starting. You just want to keep things simple. Make sure that you edit out any mistakes, but for example, I have a different set of racks that I’ve developed co-developed with other tutors audio experts who know more than me, which I can then apply to my audio. So if they want a particular promo read or a particular type of narration, read then!

I can treat the audio in a way so that it’s more ready to go. And obviously, the vast majority of sound engineers out there want it as raw as possible. And that needs to be your number one priority, but having the option to offer more ready-to-go content, especially when you’re dealing with clients who might not be able to afford an engineer, can be a fantastic direct offering.

• Are you comfortable enough to be able to quickly separate lots of different files and batch them into different folders?

Because again, especially in the e-learning sphere, that’s a really invaluable offering to be able to have rather than having to rely on the instructional designer to cut up the audio. 

• Do you have any copywriting expertise that you can apply to a project?

As voice actors, we need to appreciate what different types of copy are doing and how they’re going about doing that. So we need an appreciation of the form of structure. Your copy feedback could therefore range from just solving the odd grammatical error to actually suggesting whole alternate sections or actually even potentially offering complete rewrites on specific areas as well. 

Maybe there isn’t a clear enough sense of conflict before the script reaches its resolution. Maybe there’s a missed opportunity for applying the rule of three when listing benefits. Or maybe there’s just an unwarranted change of tense halfway through a script because it’s gone through so many different layers of approval. That it’s kind of been hacked together, in which case it’s your job, or at least you’re offering to be able to provide a solution to that video syncing. And editing is another pretty obvious offering that not every voice actor has being able to test your voice over a recording with a video.

So that you are absolutely sure that it does sync when requested by a client can really save them time at their end. But in some projects being able to go that one step further and actually edit the video so that they work together can really be helpful in a recent project that I worked for. 

There was a video tutorial and some software, and the actual cursor that was going around on the screen was doing things much slower than it took me actually to narrate those actions. I was able to offer the client to edit the video myself to speed up certain sections or cut some dead time at various bits in the video as well where nothing was happening on the screen and then combined that with the voice-over that I’d naturally created so that I was able to give them a fully finished end product that didn’t have any dead time and sounded natural as well.

Consider if there are any opportunities to switch your hat from being a performer to being a director in a lot of the corporate content that I work with. There are often talking heads, and there are people who have minimal experience of actually being on camera themselves or narrating things themselves. But it’s thought of as adding extra value for them to say certain bits themselves authentically or appear on screen themselves. 

So what I have sometimes been able to offer, in addition to my narration, is a bit of one-on-one training with people before they go in front of the camera themselves. They can do very physically or things to do vocally to bear in mind to make the whole filming process much easier for them depending on when you started. 

If you had an entire existing career before you moved into voice acting, then it’s really your responsibility to make sure that your clients are aware of it. If you worked in law, if you worked in the medical area, if you worked in hospitality, then for clients who also operate in those spheres, you’re going to be able to communicate with even greater authority because you really genuinely understand all of the minutiae of what you’re talking about. 

And also, maybe you’re a vocal specialist in some way. Maybe you’re an exceptional opera singer, or perhaps you’re a heavy metal vocalist. Again, making people aware of this pretty unique or unusual skill set is not one that people would naturally assume when they’re booking a corporate narration. They might be able to open their ideas about the type of content they may be able to create, making it a bit more collaborative. 

It’s inarguable that the more you have a fuller understanding of the whole process and what other people are doing, that are only going to inform your decisions that much more in terms of your vocal delivery. And at the base level, it’s going to make you a better voice-over artist even if you decide not to be bold enough to make other explicit offerings. Yes, it’s all about just hitting record, doing your thing, and then moving to the next job for some voice-over artists, but in the increasingly competitive area finding these opportunities to really cultivate. 

Conclusion:

A USP, I think, is vitally important, so you can keep that momentum going as well. I hope you’ve enjoyed this video as ever. If so, please do like subscribe and share the word! And do feel free to add a comment below if there’s anything else that you can think of as a voice-over offering as well. Thank you so much for your time, and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Voice Over Gains

During a typical week, the one excuse I always have to leave my studio is going to the gym. 

I know, that's pretty sad.

But it’s not entirely surprising that I’ve started to see parallels between my approach to exercise and my approach to voice over. 

I certainly don’t claim to be a veteran in either field, having switched to VO full-time just over a year ago, but I think there are some fundamental principles that the two share.  And if you read this and think ‘that’s crap’, please do comment or send me an email, as I’d really be interested in people’s thoughts!

Be clear on your goals

For years I went to the gym sporadically - hitting it hard for a few weeks and then not going for months.  And with voice over work, sometimes I would make it a priority; getting a new voice reel done, going to any classes that were running and reaching out to as many voice over agents as possible - but would then burn out relatively quickly when I didn’t get a response.

Training at the gym only got serious for me after a major life event forced me to take a look at who I was, who I wanted to be and where that disparity lay. My self esteem was at an all-time low, and as someone who liked having an element of control, I was struggling with the arbitrary, feast or famine nature of life as a professional actor.  

Getting serious about physical training started by setting out SPECIFIC short, medium and long term goals.  By setting them clearly, I could achieve the short ones, work my way gradually towards the medium ones and ultimately feel that the long term ones might one day happen.  Throughout, specificity was the key.  It was never just “I want to get stronger/faster/bigger/ smaller” - but that I needed to get to x weight/rep/speed by y date.

Similarly with voice over - being as specific as possible about your short, medium and long term goalsmeans progress can be measured and placed in the context of a body of work.  I started with the simple short term aim of booking my first professional voice over job - nice and general.  But from there, (advised by Guy Michaels), I set myself a financial target of what I wanted to earn ‘per hour’ over the next three months, and then gradually built expectations from there. Having this attitude isn’t revolutionary, but the short term satisfaction of winning the daily battles helped retain momentum, momentum that was fundamentalto contemplating bigger challenges.  

Get started today

I go to the gym four days a week now, but as I’ve mentioned before, there was a tendency to go ‘all in’ for a few weeks and then burn out.  When I started getting serious about exercise, I reset my mindset and asked myself what was the minimum I was willing to commit to consistently.  I started by going to the gym for no more than 40 minutes twice a week, and over time the workouts have got more frequent.  It was re-programming my attitude to make exercise just part of what I did every week, rather than an exceptional event,  that was key.  

In voice over, when you’re just starting out - take the pressure off!  Be honest about what you feel you can consistently commit to and say ‘This is the minimum I can do every week, but I will do it”.  After a few months, this ‘minimum’ isn’t charged with a desperate need to make stuff happen, but becomes the foundation to a methodical approach.  Incrementally,  two hours a week can become three or four, as you amass little victories and see small progressions starting to build up to actual, irrefutable results.

Pick an approach and COMMIT to it

The internet will overwhelm you by the amount of work out programmes.  Where do you start?  The answer is to not overthink, but pick a programme that interests you and commit to it for a sustained period of time.  I’d never properly got into weight training but it interested me, especially I was quite skinny.  As a result, I was sometimes seen for more geeky acting roles that I had no interest in playing. 

Starting out with a simple weights programme, based on body splits and progressive overload, gave me a structure and reference point from which I could build.  Rather than turning up to the gym and hoping I was doing the right thing, I committed to a programme that interested me and did it for twelve weeks straight, always making sure I did just that little bit more than the last time.  This is the simplest way of seeing progress happen, rather than spending time worrying if what your doing is 110% the most effective workout you could be doing, and ending up pinging from programme to programme as a result.  A great example of this in weight training is CT Fletcher, whose catchphrase "It's Still Your MotherF**king Set" cuts to the chase - when you do something, COMMIT TO KEEP DOING IT.

So, with VO.  If you’re going to try out the pay-to-play sites, properly commit to updating your profile, to actually doing all those auditions, to offering alternative reads and learning the intricacies of clip-based auditioning.  If you’re going to try cold calling, then collate a list of leads at the beginning of every week and commit to calling at least ten every day for a few months.  If you’re going to try freelancing sites, do the research on how to make your ‘gig’ as inviting as possible, how you can best upsell your work and making sure that you get those positive reviews that will lead to more orders.  But don’t get stuck in the middle, trying to do all three to little or no effect.  Only by properlycommitting can you see how an approach works for you, what the results are going to be like over a sustained period of time, and whether that programme is the best personal fit.

Work on your technique

In weight lifting, there’s a lot written on the perils of momentum - ‘cheating’ the weight in the concentric part of the exercise, which in turn reduces the strain actually placed on the body part being exercised.  Only by being taught, understanding and observing proper formwill all that time in the gym actually lead to results.  So it wasn’t a coincidence that my most productive period of training started by working on such fundamentals with a personal trainer.  She observed all the little things I was doing wrong and helped me to become aware and address them - basically, to self-direct.

In voice over, everyone will tell you that it doesn’t really matter if you have a good voice - it’s how you utilise it that counts.  Appreciate that different reads (narrative, corporate, commercial etc) require different approaches and techniques.  You may be able to obtain a certain level of success through pure instinct - and with the number of professional actors that transfer seamlessly into VO work, you’d like to think that that skill set was entirely transferable.  But only by working with a good voice over coach can you be truly aware of your strengths and weaknesses, obtaining an objective perspective on your skill set.  Just like with the personal trainer, me hiring a VO coach wasn’t because I wasn’t making progress - it was because I knew I could be more efficient, but didn’t know how to get there.  Getting the job or executing it efficiently depends on being able to ‘self-direct’, but that is a skill that needs to be cultivated .

Think investment rather than cost

We’ve all heard of (or been) the person who signs up to a gym with the best of intentions, only to visit a handful of times before hastily cancelling the direct debit, usually down to a combination of guilt, frustration and “just not having time”.  It was only when I started to think of my monthly gym fee as an investment in myself (both in terms of health and self-confidence), that the money I paid ceased to become an exorbitant amount I struggled to justify, but rather an investment in my general well-being.

In voice over - the purchase of decent equipment, tuition, marketing etc needs to be thought of as investments in your VO career.  You can still be canny with those investments - I’ve blogged before about how my original home start-up came in at under £400 - but you need to be conscious of when it’s useful to budget, and when it’s best to invest.  I could pay less and go to a cheaper, more basic gym - but I know that this will demotivate me spending any time there if there’s going to be long waits for equipment, I’m going to feel rushed and the environment is horrible - so its justifiable to invest in a nicer environment.  

You don’t need to rush out and buy a £1000 mic, but neither should you rely on a bargain basement USB to do your pro work.  Lots of working VO’s love using Audacity to record and edit, especially as it’s free - but I chose to switch to Adobe Audition because the interface is clearer and nicer and I’m spending hours looking at the programme every day.  Even with tuition - yes, some of the best VO’s tutors charge ostensibly large rates, but the improvement you will see and likelihood of being able to pitch for better paid jobs increases.  It’s all down to a subtle but necessary change in outlook.

Keep track of progress

I mentioned previously the importance of having a programme while at the gym - and a vital part of every programme is making sure you log and assess your progress.  If I find that I’ve reached a ‘plateau’ on a certain exercise (when I’m lifting the same weight for the same number of repetitions), I need to identify that plateau so I can stratergise how to overcome it.

In voice over work, when you’ve committed to a particular task, make sure you keep tracking your progress.  If you’re hitting the pay to play sites hard, then how many auditions are converting to bookings and is this ratio going up, down or stabilising?  If you’re cold calling, how many leads are turning into bookings?  How many bookings are turning into referrals?  You need to have a handle on these numbers so you can make objective assessments on your progress, not just blindly put the hours in and hope things steadily improve.  If something isn’t working, or isn’t working as effectively as you think it could, you need to be aware of it.

Embrace alternative methods

As a follow on from tracking progress - you need to research alternative methodologies, to grow your reference of problem solving strategies.  When I hit a plateau in the gym and identified it, I started to research more advanced techniques and began incorporating them into my work outs.  Pyramid sets, super-sets and negative reps are all different ways of pushing through boundaries, which might be overwhelming for a beginner to incorporate but are vital to continual improvement.

The VO marketplace is rapidly expanding and evolving, where traditional points of reference on best practise are subject to alteration even more than changing styles in vocal delivery.  You need to be aware of what other VO’s are doing so you have as many tools in your armoury as possible.  There are large numbers of VO’s out there waxing lyrical about subjects as varied as social media marketing to cold calling, from great portable set-ups to the intricacies of email marketing.  It’s your responsibility to get as educated about these subjects as possible, so that you can be adaptable in a competitive market.

Acknowledge the fallacy of comparison

Combining exercise and social media is pretty much a one-way ticket to body dysmorphia, especially when photo-shopping seems to be increasingly prevalent in widening the gap between appearance and reality.  

As an actor too, I’ve long learnt about the dangers in comparing yourself with others - it’s an exercise that can prove just as self-destructive as it is inspiring.  Social media amplifies these disparities - when you become overly conscious of other people’s achievements and simultaneously oblivious to their struggles.  So while social media can be a vital tool for marketing purposes, be sure to take it all with a substantial amount of salt.  I’ll tweet about booking a triple A video game, but I won’t tell you anything about the five pretty low-rate explainers I managed not to book the day before.  So be careful who you follow, and if you do follow fellow VO’s in an effort to forge relationshipsand foster support, don’t underestimate the value of the ‘mute’ button when necessary.

Take gurus with a pinch of salt

As the online fitness market has expanded immensely through platforms such as Youtube, so has the number of self-styled fitness gurus generating questionable content.  Magical programmes offering a ‘six-pack shortcut’ or a revolutionary supplement (clinically tested by… no-one) are aimed squarely at the newbie market looking for a quick fix.

I’ve already alluded to the wealth of free voice over content available - both on youtube and elsewhere.  A lot of it is extremely useful.  But as the demand for such content grows, so have ways in which it has been monetised.  Exclusive webinars, Facebook groups and voice sprays continue to emerge, and while a lot of these things can be useful, it’s healthy to be sceptical and do as much research as possible.  Talk to other people about their experiences and what they would personally vouch for.  Do your due diligence and research.  Work out what you can afford, and ask if your money can be more safely invested elsewhere.  Be aware that there are people out there looking to exploit a rapidly growing market, and nothing should be taken at face value - including this blog ;)

Know the importance of rest

As the gym bug truly started to bite and I actually started looking forward to working out, I began to struggle with the concept of ‘resting’.  It wasn’t until I scaled back from five workouts to four, under the advice of a personal trainer,  and saw my results improve, that I had to believe it.  Unsurprisingly, the body needs time to properly rest and recover - indeed with weight training, it is while ‘resting’ that any gains or improvements actually have a chance to develop.  You physically need time to heal after a proper workout (around 48 hours for specific body parts), otherwise you will get diminished results.

A huge problem with working from home is that it can prove impossible to truly ever disconnect.  There could always be another take to record, email to send or Instagram hashtag to mine.  Though this can sometimes be wonderful for a workaholic like myself, you still only have a finite level of stamina - and the quality of work will ultimately suffer over time, let alone your personal relationships and actual life.  So set some ground rules for yourself about working - whether that’s weekends being completely sacred, no email checking after 6pm or whatever.  Decide on a structure and stick to it - it will benefit you in the long term.

Apologies for the rambling nature of the blog - I appreciate that none of these points are particularly new.  But I think it can be valuable to touch base with these ideas in a slightly different way, and hopefully it's provided a little food for thought - wherever you are in your own voiceover journey.  To conclude, I'd recommend one final post by Jamie Varon that fellow VO Esther Wane recently shared.  It's about being fine about where you are, and not letting the to-do lists and competing motivation quotes overwhelm you.   

Enjoy, and thanks for reading.