Voice Acting is an art and requires lots of training/coaching, education, money, dedication, determination and not be thin-skinned. As an example, out of all the auditions I do, perhaps in 100 auditions, I may get 1 job. Just think, I can dribble and shoot a basketball, but I’m not in the NBA. Catching my drift? Here’s a VO friend of mine who wrote a great article you should read. After you do, Google “VOICE ACTING”, “VOICE TALENT”, etc and read, read, read. You have a long road ahead of you if you are set in going forward with Voice Acting.

https://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/pdf/The_Voice_Over_Entrance_Exam_by_Peter_K_OConnell_Copyright_2009.pdf

Think it through thoroughly before you jump into our pool. You need to be ready to invest a lot of time and money into yourself. And have thick skin to take the rejection that we receive when we audition job after job – give it our all and still not get a call-back. It’s tough, but you need to use auditions as a tool to learn and strengthen yourself.

Wanted to toss a few things out there before we speak together so you can be thinking about what you are asking for. Honestly, I try my best to discourage people in trying to get into our biz right now. It’s a vicious circle. You must have a dynamite voice demo in order to get decent work. In order to have a demo, you should take training from a qualified coach. In order to get those ongoing auditions, you will need a quality studio. So if you do get a job, you can deliver a high quality audio file and the client may wish to direct you, so you need a phone patch too just to start. Obviously, this takes a lot of time, money, perseverance and a thick skin to endure the countless auditions it will take to get the job and the many, many rejections you’ll get every day. You must be ready to be available at a moments notice to be able to cut audio. I know many voice actors that are doing this full time and are still struggling. I am full time as a voice actor since 2006 after 35 years in radio where I started by biz on the side. It only took me 40+ years to be an overnight success.

Do you have what it takes to compete with these other hungry voice talents? There are over 300-400,000 out there now. That’s a small piece of pie to split even though there is a lot of work out there. Ask yourself these questions: • Are you planning on investing in yourself to be a full time voice actor or is this to be a side job? • Do you have access to a studio to work out of at a moments notice? • Do you currently have a Commercial demo? E-learning demo? Narrative Demo? • What are your strengths? Are you planning on specializing in any particular area of voiceovers? • What are your long range goals?

Let me know where you’re headed, I’d be happy to answer any of the questions above. Please respond via email. JG@johnnygeorge.com

I Thank you…. 

The “pandemic” is basically over. (until we hear otherwise) We’re now entering Summer. And out here in Arizona, that has a whole different meaning. Are you getting as many voice requests, auditions, etc?

Our industry is going through phases, just like any other corner of the business world. I’ve had several days of absolutely no work or auditions. But I’m not freaking out. That doesn’t mean no one want’s my voice. Doesn’t mean I’ve fallen off all Talent Rosters. Just be aware, my voice services are just not exactly what someone needs specifically right now.

I like to take advantage of these days and utilize these slower days to work on all those studio needs I never seem to find time to do.

• Practice scripts,
• Clean up studio
• Organize all those studio cables & stuff on the floor
• Have you sent out Thank You cards for your latest projects?
• Do you Cold Call? If so, try about 5 each day.
• Since everyone else is emailing, texting, etc. make a personal phone call to your clients to keep in touch.
• Are you keeping up with your Blog? (Like this one)
• Do you have time & money for Coaching? Now’s a good time.
• Do you have a Mobile setup? If not, organize a solution and test it so you’re ready.
• Take a vacation!
• Spend more time with family.

Everyone will have different reasons for downtime. But these slow days create opportunities for you that you didn’t realize you had. Take advantage of this time.

By the way…if you are slow, just put out a notice that you are going to be “out of the studio” for a vacation and all of a sudden, work starts flowing in. Must be a trigger to clients, eh?

     2019?  Really?  Sheesh…seems life is moving so fast, the older you get, doesn’t it?  You wake up Monday morning and stretch and then look around and it seems its already Friday!   Good Lord, what’s going on here?  I’m hoping that means that I’m enjoying life so much, that I need to stop and take a breath and “smell the roses“.  Well, I’m going to be my usual self and be the eternal optimist as my norm.  You?  Does it feel that it too is moving fast for you also?

     We’ve been doing some things a bit differently as I prepared for this new year at home, “Paradise Found“, as I call it.  I have a budget!  So that means in order to live like I have become accustomed to, I need to bring in some more dough or trim my expenditures.  I’m also on a new diet. (lifestyle eating change) so far, so good.  We’ll get back to that at a later time to bring you up to date.

     Regarding voice work…I’m re-focusing on doing more e-Learning projects, Narrative jobs and Explainer Video’s.  I like long form that you can get “into” without doing any audiobooks.  That’s just not my gig.  Been scouring the Net to find the right people behind this new avenue of interest to me.  I’ve done a lot of narrative voiceover projects during my career and as you grow, your direction can seem to want to explore some of the areas you’ve touched on before.  And this seems to be my new interest. And my studio today is more suited to it also, with equipment and acoustics with room to spread my arms out without hitting a Auralex wall.

     And may I say that I truly appreciate what the good people at GVAA, The Global Voice Acting Academy, have done over this past year.  They have documented and refined a living and breathing document called, The GVAA Rate Guide.  They have taken feedback, input of all kinds, from all avenues of voice talents and blended it into a working Rate Guide that makes sense, reflects today’s voice workplace and is fair to clients. When negotiating working rates, I simply send them to the guide and say, I fall in line with those prices and support them.  About 95% of my clients have not balked at all.  If everyone is on the same page, the only difference is the quality and style of the chosen voice artist.  Ya gotta love it.

     What are you doing differently?  I hope you too have challenged your “typical normalcy“, otherwise, it’s like they say, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, is the definition of Insanity.”  Hey, I didn’t come up with that…But it’s true.