The Biggest Secret in Voice-Over
There’s no way around it.
You can rationalize, make excuses, laugh it off, sweep it under the rug, and flat-out refuse to believe it.
The truth is (and there are very few truths in voice-over) it’s a numbers game.
The more decision-makers you reach out to…
The more people will reply…
The more conversations you will start…
The more website visits you will drive…
The more demo listens you will get…
The more rosters you will get on…
The more auditions you will get and the more gigs you’ll be offered outright…
The more gigs you will book overall…
The more clients you will accumulate…
And the more revenue you will generate.
It all starts with reaching out to more people. That’s one behavior that you have control over and it is the single most impactful thing you can do to influence the success of your business.
Everything in bold above is a positive result. A win.
That one behavior sets the entire chain of wins in motion. There is a direct correlation between the number of people you reach out to and the revenue you generate.
To me, this is the biggest “secret” in voice-over.
Really, Paul?
Consider this:
1. In the most recent State of Voice Over Survey (2021), almost half (48.3%) of voice actors reported making less than $8,000 a year. 75% make less than $40,000 a year.
2. In the same survey, 73.1% of voice actors say they reach out to market their services directly less than 3 times a day.
That’s no coincidence.
What business in the world can reach out to 1 or 2 people a day and expect to be successful?
There was an insurance company in Chicago that called in a consultant to analyze why their profits were declining. The company was averaging only two and half sales per agent per month. So, the consultant came in and immediately put his finger on the problem.
He told them, “Your only problem is that you are not calling on enough people.”
This solution was way too simple for the top executives at the company.
So, the consultant said, “I'll prove it to you!” He took a group of their salespeople, a cross-section of the sales force from best to worst, and told them, “Effective today, you're going to start selling policies door to door in neighborhoods where you don't know a soul. There will be no leads provided. There will be no qualifying of prospects.
And, when the person opens the door, you must start the sales call with the following words: 'You don't want to buy any life insurance, do you?’”
Their mission was simply to see how many people they could repeat that message to every day. That was it.
Needless to say, the salespeople were a bit skeptical.
The approach failed. Fifty-nine out of every sixty people they approached declined.
But one out of every sixty said, “As a matter of fact, I do need insurance. Come on in and sign me up!"
If you said one out of sixty isn't a very good closing ratio, you'd be right… if it took a month to see sixty prospects.
But with the consultant's approach, the average salesperson found that it only took about eight hours to approach sixty people.
As a result, they immediately began averaging about one sale a day (22/month). Up from two and half sales a month.
That’s an almost 10x increase.
~ Adapted from Go For No By Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz
Notice the pitch is purposefully awful. The consultant designed the pitch to be worse than the one the agents had been using to prevent that variable from influencing the results.
And finally, half (49.3%) of voice actors make less than 10% of their voice-over income from direct marketing, their website, and other sources not counting agents and pay-to-play casting sites.
So…
We don’t reach out to set the chain of wins in motion…and we don’t get the results we’re looking for.
That’s like saying, “I’m not working out at all and I keep getting weaker and softer. I don’t get it!”
One or two sit-ups a day won’t make you fit. Neither will 1,000 sit-ups on one day.