VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Hart]

I know we hash over these sites fairly regularly but I got to thinking after reading Banksey's recent thread and wanted to share this train of thought.

I’ve heard and read a lot lately about people auditioning on these sites and I decided to look at it from a financial point of view. Let me make a few assumptions. First, let’s throw out the initial sign up fee. It just complicates this example. Now, I recall reading on another forum the opinion that landing 1 gig in 400 auditions is a good average. We’ll assume that the average job pays $250 for said site. Oh, and let’s assume it takes 15 minutes to complete one audition.

400 auditions x 15 minutes = 6000 minutes or 100 hours.

$250/100 hours= $2.50 per hour. Lets say you landed four jobs at $250 or one job for $1000. Congrats, you just averaged $10 an hour.

Just something to think about. It might even be valuable if you change my assumptions to match your own work habits and speed.

And to expose any potential bias: I’m a paying member of one site. I rarely audition anymore unless I think it’s a lead that I’m tailor made for. Last year I made my money back and then a little on private leads.
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[Philip Banks]

Vanity and dreams cloud the judgement of a lot of Voice Overs. If you are a Voice Over for business reasons this must not be allowed to happen. It is possible to keep your business head without being a cynical money grabber.

[tackerman]

I think there's a natural arc in the use of these sites.

At some point after auditioning for everything under the sun you realize that they're just another vehicle for advertising your services... and auditioning for an occasional job that's right up your alley and has a reasonable rate.

Otherwise your efforts are better spent elsewhere.

[Dan-O]

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[BenWils]

I agree. 1 in 400 seems to me to be a sign. What is the sign telling you???...could be many things. Perhaps you are always way too late for the show or perhaps nobody is interested in your sound???Or maybe you don't follow directions well and your auditions get tossed to the side??

As Dan said, not to be mean, if you are getting 1 of 400 gigs that you bust your tail to audition for...one must think....I need to change my approach.....or approach another vocation. The 5% and 95% thing tells us that there are way more people who are floundering and will never ever make it. One must look at the signs....adjust if needed and if still not making progress after several adjustments, consider approaching another dream. Your sound may not be all that bad...it's just not what people are looking for where you are selling it.
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Ben


"To be really good at voiceover, you need to improve your footwork and hip snap."

[CWToo]

Insurance salespeople are told that every cold call is worth a dollar, which sort of translates to auditions.

But another way to think of auditions is as practice with pressure (Suck = no work). You also get to stretch by doing some things you don't ordinarily do. You also can find out that there are things you can't do well which need work.

And as my father once told me, "Never calculate how much you make an hour."

[bobsouer]

[paddyo]

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[richgates]

I really like your attitude about this Bob, but it is ultimately a competition. Not in the conventional sense since it isn't a simple matter of who's the most qualified. But the fact that you are up against other talent for the gig.

I think competition is a good thing to be honest. At least for me it is, because it helps me reach down deep and bring out my best. I liken it to my experience playing basketball. When I faced players who were far superior to me, I would raise my game to their level.

I think you can have competition and still be friendly with your competitors. I've noticed that about a lot of the folks here as well. By and large the members of VO-BB are extremely willing to help, which you wouldn't see as much in other fields where people are competing for work.

[bobsouer]

Rich,

The metaphors that help you raise your game are the ones you need to use. I was perhaps the world's worst basketball player. (I managed to foul out of a game in the first four minutes once.)

Except among the "bottom of the barrel" crowd, there's really very little competition. The voice that's right for the job (assuming the producers know about that person) is the one that will be hired.

I suppose the main reason I shy away from competition metaphors is because it's hard for me to forget about being beaten. It's very easy for me to forget about not being cast when I'm not the right voice. At the end of the day, I have to be able to go to sleep, and forget what's in the past so I can press on toward what's ahead, tomorrow.
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Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express

[Gp]

Another way to look at it is that....now someone else has heard me. Was my performance memorable? Was my heart in what I was doing? If that's the case then there IS one more that has heard you. You may not be right for this job....but you may be right for another.

[richgates]

I totally understand your point of view Bob especially from a psychological perspective. I guess what it comes down to is what keeps you motivated. For me I like to think about who I might be competing against because knowing that will help me elevate my performance.

Whatever works best for you is clearly the way to go.

[TheVoiceOfBob]

As president of the "bottom of the barrel" crowd, I admit to thinking of it as a competition. Perhaps I should change that thinking, maybe I won't get so depressed when I look at 477 audition submissions with one job.

I don't do as many "custom" auditions, so that might be where I'm hurting myself. I tend to answer the Generic requests from V123, and answer Voices.com with my Generic demos for most everything.
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Try to imagine a world where there is no such thing as hypothetical situations.

The Voice of Bob

[Hart]

Interesting responses, thank you. Here are some random replies.

I agree that 1 in 400 number seems off and if that's what one averages then perhaps a career change is in order. That was sort of an unspoken point I was trying to make I think. It was late when I typed that last night.

Dan, Okay, 1 in 50 sounds reasonable to me. Let's apply it:

50 auditions x 15 minutes = 750 minutes or 12.5 hours.

$250/12.5 hours= $20 per hour.

I typed up a section last night for Banksey about applying the 5 percent rule of his but then deleted it. I was getting too wordy. I would guess it does apply to these sites. After listening to literally hundreds of demos it's easy to assume 90 percent never get any work, 5 percent may get a phone job or two because of low bids, and 5 percent are truly talented and land jobs regularly. That sound about right?

Ultimately I agree with Tom, and an opinion that's been stated here many times before, that these sites are best viewed as another marketing opportunity.

Thanks for participating in the discussion. Very interesting.
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[Lizden]