VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Gregory Best

Fiver?? Really? Nuff said.
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Gregory Best

greg@gregorybest.com

DeadDillo · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 6:33 am Post subject:

I'd like to know who these people are that are pulling in six figures from Fiverr and just how much slave labor they use to keep up with productivity.
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www.MarleyAudio.com

Roar-duh · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 6:41 am Post subject:

Rick, I completely get it. I've been on the receiving end of many of those client demands, where they want the entire world shoved into :30 and they'll demand multiple revisions until you've pulled it off... all for a tiny 1 or 2 week order. On the other hand, I know that I won't come out of the gate reading national spots for Verizon, and that I'll probably spend a lot of time slugging it out with "challenged" copy from smaller markets in the beginning.

And I'm taking that fiverr thing with a grain of salt. Or maybe 10 pounds of salt. I'm happy that they know some guy who's booking work there, but... no.

Rob Ellis · M&M Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 2385 Location: Detroit

BTW Roar-duh I defected over to the dark side (sales) cool

during my last couple of years in radio....so I developed an understanding of the pressures that radio salespeople live with on a day-to-day basis.

And I do think some sales experience is helpful in this freelance VO business.

DougVox · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 7:07 am Post subject:

OK...a tiny bit of math. (But likely more than my brain can handle.)

Each Fiver gig earns the provider just $4. (Fiver keeps a $1 commission, so the site is actually 20% worse than everyone thinks.)

So $100,000 means 25,000 gigs. (Yes, I know that there are additional services that people can charge more for, but those probably take more time, too, so let's keep this ridiculous example simple.)

If we assume that you could do each gig in just 10 minutes, that's 250,000 minutes, or 4,166 hours.

That's more than 100 weeks worth of work at 40 hours a week.

You could (almost) get it all done in a year, but you'd be working 80 hours a week, (that's 16 hours a day - every waking hour - five days a week) doing nothing but recording and sending audio.
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Doug Turkel (tur-KELL)
Voiceover UNnouncer®
UNnouncer.com

Roar-duh · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 7:07 am Post subject:

Pressure? What pressure? There's so little stress in selling radio that I thought it would be a good idea to try VO as an additional challenge.

Wait... I think I've lost my mind. Shocked

Rick Riley · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 7:09 am Post subject:

This is off topic, but to you Roar-duh. I pretty much hit the nail on the head when defining your current position writing copy. You’re caught between that rock and a hard place. Know that good copy writers aren’t sales people as well. They are just copy writers. Talented, knowledgeable, schooled people who just work in the field of painting pictures with words. And they are rarely found selling time in radio stations. The reason I point this out, is because after almost three decades in radio, when I left, I thought, ‘I’ve been voicing commercials for almost 30 years. I can do this with one lip tied behind my back’. I was wrong. It took me a while to realize that while I’d been ‘reading’ copy, I hadn’t been interpreting ideas and painting pictures that these top tier copy writers were putting out. And I needed to learn how to do that. That’s when I took the step that changed my game, and got coaching.

Bottom line… your radio station environment won’t give you what you need to compete in the VO world. It’s too rushed and bottom line oriented. While you’re working, take some time to get some coaching and then use the studio after hours to put it to work. I went with Nancy Wolfson and there’s not a script I read these days that something she taught me doesn’t come into play.

Thanks for taking what I said to heart and not becoming defensive. You know your environment and so do I. Take it from someone who probably has a few more years under their belt than you. You’re going to have to separate yourself from that environment to be effective in the VO world. And good luck.
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Roar-duh · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 7:26 am Post subject:

Rick, that's actually something that Bill and I worked on pretty extensively in our coaching sessions. I've learned a lot about taking the "announcer" out of my read, backing off a little from the mic, and relaxing for a more relatable read. I was quick to do things like use downward inflection to convey authority because that's what I hear all day long in the direct-response boner pill and investment ads on my station. I'm now learning to dial it back in some cases to a point that almost feels unnatural.

Selling radio has actually given me something I'll need to compete, and that's a better idea of how to market myself. Compared to the calling and arm-twisting I do in sales, the thought of calling a production house and asking if they're accepting demos seems like a pleasant change of pace.

And I will absolutely seek out more coaching. The only thing I know about VO right now is that there's a whole universe of things I don't know. At the risk of derailing this thread further - what do you think of the Voicebank weekly workout sessions?

Scott Pollak · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 7:50 am Post subject:

Lee Gordon · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 8:15 am Post subject:

Before Rick beat me to it, I was tempted to make some similar comments about radio sales guys who write their own copy, but restrained myself. I work with quite a few salesmen-cum-copywriters and not all of them are blithering idiots; a couple are just regular idiots. cool

There's even one who actually writes pretty decent copy. So I know not to paint with too broad a brush. Roar-duh's posts have all been well thought out and, almost incredibly for a sales guy who writes his own commercials, properly punctuated, so I think we're dealing with an exception here. Wink

If you can glean some useful information from your coaching and, more importantly, have the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff, you should be fine. In any case, the real "job" part of being a voiceoverist isn't the voiceovering, it's the selling of oneself, so your experience should prove beneficial.
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Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

Bob Bergen · CM Joined: 22 Apr 2008 Posts: 981

Roar-duh · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 9:13 am Post subject:

Thanks Lee! I figure that if you're written presentation comes off like a knuckle-dragger, then you have no business writing an email asking for five figures worth of somebody's ad budget. Through coaching, I've learned about knocking some of the "prim and proper" out of my reads, swallow the occasional "T", and sound a little more like the guy next door. I can do it in a coaching session, I just need to get more comfortable with doing it in the trenches.

Bob, I greatly appreciate your input and I'll definitely look further into the Voicebank workouts. I'll be sure to post my demo here for input as soon as it's completed. The last thing I want is to blast out a mediocre demo to the world and make a bad name for myself.

Bob Bergen · CM Joined: 22 Apr 2008 Posts: 981

Roar-duh · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 2:01 pm Post subject:

Philip Banks · Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2015 3:05 am Post subject:

Here's the business strategy. Consult numerous failed VO people on how to run your new VO business and then get one VO who is so successful he or she offers Coaching but only for 40 students per week BUT for 2 hours only. Introduce some advice on branding from someone who once spent a week reading about branding and add that all important "marketing expertise". SEO is key. You must be found in more places in which you don't need to be found! THEN ...the demo. Between 30 seconds and 12 mins of general mixed specific targeted non-target audio physically interpreted through the medium of contemporary dance.

NEVER pay for sh*t advice. That'll be $8.95 please.