By VO Life Coach ·
"You aren't just a voice; you're a business owner, an engineer, and a performer." That line is from the VO Life Coach app, and it is there for a reason. Almost everyone starts out thinking the job is the first of those three. The people who last learn to do all of them, often on the same afternoon.
The performer
This is the part everyone pictures: the read. It is also the part with the most competition, because anyone with a microphone can call themselves voice talent. What separates a booked read from a pleasant one is decisions. Who you are talking to, why you are saying it now, and what you want the line to do to the listener.
That work happens before you record. Our post on how to break down a voice over script covers the questions to answer first, and the VO Script Analyzer will do a first pass on any script you paste, so you walk into the booth with choices instead of a tone.
Training never stops being part of this job, however long you have been working. The VO Life Coach app has Work Outs, the Script Farm and Audition Ride-Alongs, where you hear a working pro audition in real time, so you are never practising alone.
The engineer
Clients hear your room before they hear your read. A great performance in a boxy, echoing space loses to a decent one recorded clean. So you are also the engineer: the room treatment, the microphone and interface, the levels, the edit, the file names and the delivery format.
None of this needs the most expensive gear. It needs a quiet, dead space and a chain you understand well enough to fix when it breaks. If you are stuck, get help from someone who does it for a living rather than guessing, because a noise problem you cannot hear is still costing you jobs. VO Life Coach sends talent to George Whittam of George The Tech for exactly that, and the app's Life Line lists trusted business partners.
The business owner
This is the job most talent avoid, and it is the one that decides whether the other two pay. Auditions, agents, marketing, invoices, chasing late payments, and above all pricing.
Pricing is where new talent lose the most money without noticing. A voice over fee is two things: a session fee for the recording, and a usage fee for where the recording runs, how widely and for how long. Quote only the first and you have given the second away. Before you put a number on anything, find out the media, the territory and the term.
When you are ready to put figures on a quote, the VO Rate Calculator works it out from the media, the territory, the term and union or non-union, and gives you a range you can defend.
Doing all three without doing it alone
You can learn all of this by trial and error. It is slow, and the errors cost real money. Rider put it plainly: trying to build this career alone "would be like trying to climb Mt. Everest without a sherpa."
That is what VO Life Coach is for. The app covers the craft, the mindset and the business in one place, with Rider answering questions in the community. For a deeper look at where you are and where you want to be, book a VO Life Coaching session with him one on one.