VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Philip Banks]

I've been working on something for a couple of years and in 2011 it finally came good.

My best year professionally was a year with too much work and not enough free time. Job volume high, fee level ok. As we are not strictly in a volume business I needed to do a switch. Fees up, job volume down.

2011 has now knocked my previous best year ever off its perch +25%.

"Well BULLY for you PHILIP!"

Here's the acey-pacey-brill-skill part .... I did the best ever financial bit and yet did 214 fewer jobs.

How did I do it?

First, you have to think differently

see what I did there?

[bobsouer]

Philip,

Well done sir! My efforts haven't been so concentrated on reducing the number of sessions and as a result I did 512 in 2011, up just a bit from the 487 of 2010. However, I was very pleased that my billing was up just a whisker more than 33% in 2011 over 2010, making it the 4th straight year of setting a new billing record.
_________________
Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express

[Lizden]

I need to start tracking actual sessions.
I am great at tracking billing, but never actually kept track of the actual number of sessions.
I think I will start that today

I was however very happy to be up 33.5% from last year, which made 2011 my best year as well!

Today...back to zero, but onward & upward!
_________________
Liz de Nesnera O.A.V. ~ Livin' The VO Dream!
English/French Bilingual VO w/ ISDN
HireLiz.com / liz@hireliz.com

[Kristin Lennox]

Well, I will admit that 2010 was not my best fiscal year -- it was down about 25% from where I wanted to be.

But thanks to quite a few new clients (and I'm sure the rebounding economy), I DOUBLED my 2010 income in 2011. It wasn't my "best year ever" (2008 still holds that crown, thanks to a REALLY good client and residuals...), but I have reset the bar for 2012.

Bring it. May the Bob Souer Avalanche descend on us all.
_________________
Always look on the bright side of life.

Dee doo. Dee doot doot doo dee doo.

my website

[Lizden]

[Scott Pollak]

Well, since the thread has taken this turn, 2011 started out very promising for me, when, in January, I billed out more than double of any previous January since I began tracking my revenue about 8 years ago. And thru about April I was going gangbusters.

But the summer killed me. It's usually slow during the summer, but not THAT slow. I ended up okay at the end of the year, but still down about 5% from 2010. Billable jobs was about equal; within a few digits of each other.

The one real highlight for me was landing my single largest paying job ever in '11, a national v/o for Humana. That was sweet. Now, if I could land those about once a WEEK instead of once a YEAR........
_________________
Scott R. Pollak
Clients include Pandora, NPR Atlanta, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Humana, Publix, UPS, AT&T, HP, Xerox and more.

www.voicebyscott.com

[Jeffrey Kafer]

2009 = 121 bookings (well, actually invoices sent, but that's all I can go on)
2010 = 162 bookings
2011 = 216 bookings

I'm at the point where I need more bookings, so this works for me. As a result, I had a 39% increase in total revenue over 33% more bookings.

Sooo, I guess my $$ per booking is going up. I think. They told me there'd be no math.
_________________
Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com

[bobsouer]

I let my spreadsheets do all of the maths for me, that and Quickbooks.
_________________
Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express

[scottnilsen]

I saw an increase in billings of 53%. Believe me it sounds much better than it is, but it's headed in the right direction and for that I am thankful. Number of jobs increased 29%.

It's funny how things ebb and flow. Some of the clients who were providing a lot of work slowed to a trickle, while others seemingly appeared out of nowhere with repeat work. You never know where the next job is coming from.
_________________
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Well, that and mimes.

(714)408-6405 www.scottnilsen.com

[Philip Banks]

Here's the key. If I promote myself to local commercial radio stations in the UK and they give me ads to voice I will earn, from most stations, the union minimum of $35. If I promote myself to people who make national TV ads in the UK I can make up to $40,000 and sadly it can be a low as $1,500.

We can't make the phone ring but we can increase the probability of it ringing and by talking to the right people we stand a good chance of getting a $350 call as opposed to a $35 call.

When I first looked at what I was doing and for whom I noticed I was spending 85% of my time and marketing resources on a sector which produced at best 2.25% of my income. I stopped wasting that time and money. In the next 12 months my income which was already a good living increased by 58.1%

We're all begging on the streets and most people are likely to walk by without making eye contact.

"Buy me a coffee Guv' and I'll be warm for a few minutes. Buy me a coat and I'll be warm all Winter" You have one chance, go for the big sale and stop asking other Beggars.

[Jen Gosnell]

Philip, I love it.

Would you please share the specific metrics you track and how you analyze them (tools and/or methods)?

As someone who is going to be part time for a good while, I'll need to be very efficient with my time spent on business tasks. I think this kind of info would really help me maximize my returns (followed by feelings of effectiveness and thus improved morale! ). I'd love to start tracking this useful information from the get-go.

Thanks for once again getting the wheels in my brain turning.
_________________
jen@jengosnell.com
https://www.jengosnell.com
Skype: jen.gosnell
971.258.2448

[voicy1stef]

Thanks Philip for pointing me in the right direction and saving myself a lot of floundering and faffing about in 2012. What you're saying is much like my late VO teacher Bernard Shaw used to say. Same amount of effort so why not reach higher from the start!
Congrats to everyone on their successes....nice to see it happening...even better to become a fabby success story! . I did gain one fantastic client last year with much potential to grow bigger, ...now to duplicate that over and over in 2012 and have a roster of the same & many good things to report next year!
_________________
Intuit and do it!

British-American voice artist based in England for the past umpteen years. I say, has it really been that long!

http://www.stefsvoice4u.co.uk
Podcast: Positive Affirmations and Audio Stories, on iTunes, Spotify etc.

[Leslie Humble]

When I was on 80 stations from coast to coast a decade ago, the owner of the company, who had bought the Network after making his fortune as a Auto Dealer, spoke at our Christmas Party (this was when they were still not called "Holiday Parties") It was a eagerly awaited speech. A very old man, about 80 hobbled to the Microphone and spoke for about two minutes. But it was a more important speech to me that many I had heard of an hour. He just said. " Work smarter not harder. Like this: Put yourself first. Multitask. Plan your day. Work smarter not harder and you can drink a better brand of whiskey."
_________________
There are rules to the Universe. Learn them and prosper. www.HumbleVoiceover.com

[Philip Banks]