B (15:47)

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A (16:26)

Half the price of an imac. So it's very affordable. All right, so anyways, we've got that whole set up and you're going to be in a space where you need to record. All right, so your job then is to get good at recording, meaning that you can record a file, you can save it, you can edit it, you can clean it up and it is a professional sounding file that you can deliver to someone and that they would pay for and they wouldn't be like, ah, we need to you to redo this. So how do you know if you can do that? Well, it's, it goes a little beyond what I can teach over a podcast. But like for example, Veo Journey Academy, we have courses on that and there's tons of stuff on the Internet I learned from Mike. Is his name Mike Ross? Yeah, I think he's. Again, that's Adobe Audition because I, that's how I learned from him. And then I just kind of over the years and all the work I've done and do all my stuff I've just, you know, gotten better at. But that's how I learned myself was watching YouTube videos on how to edit and master my work. And then from there, once you're there, it's the beginning of setting ourselves up for marketing ourselves. Right. Getting ourselves out into the world. And this then becomes your full time job, right? Is finding work. So we can find work a couple of different ways. Okay, so, and by the way, on a side note, I didn't mean to skip right over like the Cause that is a big part of this is, you know, getting good at, you know, editing your work and mastering your work. But again, I can't really talk about that here. So what you want to do is either, like I said, I learned everything I needed to learn from YouTube, but you can also join a place. Like I said, I recommend you join VO Journey Academy always for help on that, you know, and everything else. But you can learn it through watching YouTube. Okay. All right, so getting to the part where now it's time for us to get work. So the job of getting work, you're going to have a million different pieces of advice out there for what road to take, how you should do what. And, you know, our industry is vast. There are so many opportunities for work. Everything from, you know, audiobooks to commercials to podcasts, to YouTube videos to, you know, ADR to, I mean, I mean, there's so much, right, there's so much different styles of voiceover in different categories. Animation, character work, video game work. It really is endless. So, you know, early on, you might not know where you fit in. You know, you might be like me, where I was like, I want to, I want to do video games. I want to, I'm a character voice actor. I want to do video. I want to, I want to be the next voice on World of Warcraft or something, right? And which was me. But early on I realized too, well, I also liked audiobooks because I listened to a lot of audiobooks and I was willing to try anything. So I tried anything and I got nothing except audiobooks. Now, it came to pass, right, that I realized I was a, you know, I was, I've been a teacher, too, for a good portion of my life. So it, it kind of came more naturally for me to do nonfiction audio because of the, you know, I was, I was used to talking in that kind of authoritative style. But I crashed and burned on everything else for a long time, for years. Although I did good, I did do good early on at getting hollow, like work at Halloween, scary voices, right? Because I would do kind of laughs. I do a scary laugh and do kinds of voices like that. So that helped me get work early on from that point, but it was only during Halloween. So, like, the rest of the time, I worked really hard. I got a lot of audiobook work and I grew there. But over time, I got better at doing commercial reads, deliveries. I found my money voice, you know, the, the voice that I got hired for the most. You know, I, I, I put that together. Found is the wrong word. I created it basically, and, you know, I, it worked and I started getting, it double tripled my work. But it took me years and a lot of hard work and Dedication to find that and figure it out. But anyways, so at this point, right, where do we go? How do we get set up? Well, I have kind of like a three step part to this, right. The first part of course is you know, you're going to want to begin to look at putting together a demo, getting some sort of ability for you to share what you can do with someone, okay. Whether it's on a platform, whether it's directly, individually or whatnot, or on a website, you've got to be able to have work, right? Or samples of possible work you can do. And when you first start, you don't have any work because you've not done any. So you have to create everything from scratch, right? So remember starting out just like a train or something, right? It takes the most energy to start. So don't get distur discouraged early on because you don't have stuff, right? Like you just got to get started and, and know that, you know, if you join the right communities and stuff, you're gonna have a lot of support too. But you know, that's what you gotta do when you get started. So you're, you're looking to create demos, you're looking to create samples. You can create simple samples. Like let's say you want to start off audiobooks because right now I recommend, I always recommend you start off with audiobooks because even if you don't want to do that in the future, it's a good way to give you experience with a bunch of things. Working with customers, getting jobs. There's more audio, there's always more audiobook, readily available and accessible to people than any other type of work out there in voiceover. Literally even for free. You can still get more paid audiobook work. All right? So, and it also helps you with editing because you got to learn how to edit your stuff. You've got to learn, learn how to do a deadline. You've got to work on speaking out loud, speaking a script out loud into a microphone. These were things I had to work on. And I'm so thankful that I did audiobooks early on because it really helped me get comfortable in front of a mic and talk like I'm talking to someone or a group of people and not talking into a mic. Cause that takes practice. Cause when you first start, you're like, I'm talking into a mic. You're not seeing past the microphone. All right, so that's the first part. You've got to get yourself samples, you've got to record yourself demos. Should you Buy a demo from someone else. I think early on, if you're just starting. Absolutely not. You should not go out and spend 3, 4, $5,000 on a demo. And most places won't even accept that money from you because they don't want you to spend all that money and you're not ready yet. So you can create simple like samples. One off samples. They don't even have to have background music. Again, this is with you just starting out. This isn't. As we grow because as we grow we're going to want to build really professional, well sounding pieces altogether. But when you're first starting, and that's another reason why I recommend audiobooks because you don't need that big production of a demo. Okay. You just need your voice. So at this point, right, we want to start getting ourselves onto. I like to put you down a path that I did myself, that worked for me and I've done for thousands of other voice actors. So I always start with platforms. Okay. And I liked because I. You can get on a bunch of platforms for free and they market you for free and you can put up samples, you know, you, you can put up what you have and you can put up a profile and you can get your name out there. Make sure whatever platforms you get on that you use the same name so that your name becomes whatever name you want it to be. Whether it's your name, a pseudonym or a business name, it becomes recognizable. Use the same name and start to get yourself on as many platforms as you can. There's freelance platforms, there's pay to play platforms, and there's also intermediary platforms. So freelance platforms are platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, acx, et cetera, et cetera. These are voquent, although voquent is more of an intermediary. But it's, it's still free to join these platforms. Okay. And you usually pay on the back end, although upwork has increased prices. So they, they basically give you some free credits which they call connects every month. But it's not enough to really do anything so you have to purchase them. But they're not very expensive. They're only like 20 bucks or something and a month. So you know, you, you, you get yourself on these platforms. You need a headshot of some kind of. Listen, the headshot I've used since I started was a headshot that I took. I had my iPhone and I had some. It was a filter where it like created. You've probably seen it because I. It's on this, it's on this for the. The podcast cover, you know, it's my face, and there's a darkened black background around me. And that. That was a headshot I took of me on my. From my iPhone in my car and messing around with filters. I was like, oh, this looks really cool. I just was screwing. I mean, I did everything. I went into, like, places like Walmart, you know, because they have the, like, high ceilings with the rafters, and I was, like, looking up. I did all kinds of crazy stuff trying to get pictures because I didn't have the money to go get professional headshots, right? And then I found I did that, and it worked out pretty darn well, I thought. So I've used that headshot ever since to brand myself, and it works very well. So, you know, you need some sort of picture, a headshot, something that looks professional in some way. Because remember, when people purchase from you, even though they're purchasing your voice, and they'll never see your face, they'll never know your name, the people who listen to you, in the end, the people who buy from you, they are going to see your face, they are going to know your name, and they're going to want to picture you in their head as you are their brand ambassador, you are the one who is either telling their story, you're the one who is, you know, promoting their. Their product, you're the one who is, you know, helping their brand. So, you know, they're going to want to see you and they want to hire a professional. So the more professional looking you are in those pictures, the better. Whatever you do, don't get some old picture you found on your computer from 15 years ago and put that up. You know, so many of us have done it. Don't do it. Okay, so with all that said, you want to get yourself up on as many of these freelance platforms as possible. It's free to join. Intermediary platforms are platforms that are. They are sometimes a little harder to get on, meaning that you've got to, like, submit your audio and it still can be free. All right, Because I'm thinking of, like, voice jungle and stuff like that. But they've got to accept you. And then once you're on there, they send you work and they basically deal with the client and you. So same thing with, like, Academy Voices. So Academy Voices is a. Well, we're kind of like a pay to play. Unless you're part of VO Journey Academy, then it's free. But then we're an intermediary, because, you know, myself and our team we work with the people in between authors or whoever and you know, deal with you so that you are protected and you don't have to deal with that. Like your job is only to, you know, be the creative and to do your voiceovers. But some places like voices1, 2, 3 or voices.com, budogo, these are places that are pay to plays where you deal with the customers yourself. All right? And they deal with you and you know, there is no intermediary. You just pay the platform for them, marketing you and et cetera, et cetera. Right? So you know, you've got all these platforms but you can join, you, you can join a lot of them for free. You don't get all of the benefits of like all the auditions but you still get some exposure. That's why I'm always like join as many platforms as you can. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you get nothing from that platform, join it free. I'm not telling you to buy onto it and not do anything on it, but I'm saying if you can join for free, join it. Put your stuff up there. It doesn't hurt you is what I'm saying. It only helps you. So platforms are the first thing, next thing is you should look into, after that is getting a website. Now some people are like, should I get a website first? I don't, this is just me. I don't. Unless you are going to really push the envelope on getting a really nice looking website. I would rather you not get a website until you are ready to get a very good looking website. Like you're gonna, either you can make it, you could pay someone or it's gonna look really good. Because what you don't want is a poor looking website that doesn't work very well because then it makes again you look like you're unprofessional. Do you see what I mean? And you know it would be better for you to use a YouTube channel because at least the UI is, everybody knows that and likes it and it looks better, right? So but I'm saying you should have been, after you get on these platforms, you start rolling, then you want to get up a website. There are going to be people out there who tell you the very first thing you need to do is put up a website. I just, in my humble opinion, again, there's, it's, it's whatever path you want to take. But I recommend waiting until you know you've got your stuff in, in a row and then we get up your website so that we can make it look nice. Because remember, no one will ever find your website unless a. You give it to, you give them the link to it. Which means we have to direct market because you can't do that through these websites, right? The websites, all these websites that you're on, that's their, their website is where they want the people to go. And you are a contractor for them. Do you know what I'm saying? So wherever you get clients on these other websites, they're not your clients, they're the website's clients. But the trade off is, is that you don't have to do any of that work or pay for it or anything like that. But when you do your own website on, the only way people are going to find you is if you build out that website and through SEO. And people start, you know, they pull up, you know, like FEMALE voiceover and you come up, right? Or you know, like elearning, Elearning voice actor. And you come up or something, you know what I mean? And you have to, you have to. That's going down a rabbit hole of websites or you are direct marketing, you're emailing people, you're calling people, you're handing out business cards and stuff like that. And there is a place for that. We were talking about that today in our live show, Gabby and I. But for right now, the website comes second. So you put. So now you get your website up, you've got your demos on there, you've got your headshots on there, got your services on there that you do, you've got ways to contact you, your portfolio is on there. Maybe you started a blog, right? You're, you're, you're putting out content to help people who you're trying to target, right? From there is where we start to direct market to people. And these days, you know, it's become so much more difficult to do emailing and phone calling, meaning that it's difficult to get response. I mean, I get so bombarded. I know you do too, that I hardly, I mean, it's, it's very difficult to get leeway or to get any traction there without, I mean, doing an insane amount of work that just, I mean, who, like, I mean, when was the last time you hired someone from an email that they sent you that you didn't know who they were? I mean, I mean, seriously, I just think with yourself, when was the last time? I don't know I've ever done that. So I recommend though, social media has become an amazing place to be and there's a lot of opportunities there where you can participate in ways, right, that allow you to either A, create content or B, you don't even have to create content. Because now there are so many ways with TikTok that you can just participate and other people who are, you know, your potential clients, you can participate in the content that they're creating, right? You can go on their lives and you can talk to them, and you can build relationships with them. Right, and grow your, you know, grow your clientele that way. I mean, there's so many ways to do it now online, that is. And that's the great equalizer because it doesn't even cost you money. So, you know, that's the last step, moving on to it. And then the. Then. Then the last part is agents. Agents are a great way, great opportunity to get work that you wouldn't normally be able to get. But don't forget, agents will typically only ever bring you a very small percentage of your overall work, all right? Like maybe like 5% or less. And, you know, you might not. And again, they've got a lot of other people, so you might not even book anything from your agent or agents, right? I have a couple. They do bring me unique opportunities that only go through them, but for the most part, all the work I get, I get on my own. So at this point, you're like, all right, well, that's a lot. How do I get my first job? So I highly recommend, again, something like Academy Voices, acx, these places where you can get started for little to nothing. It's. It's. I, of course I'm gonna say Academy Voices because I know for a shadow doubt, because I'm the one running it, that I know what you're gonna get. You're not gonna get scams, because there are some scams going on. Acx. And how the scam works is basically, you know, you do all this work, and then ACX is like, we're sorry, we're pulling the book because it doesn't, you know, that doesn't have the rights to be up. And you're like, I did all this work. What? But generally speaking, that's where I started an acx. And, you know, you start Academy Voices, and even if it's royalty share work, do something that's short, you know, don't do something that's like 10 hours long. Do something that's only a couple hours or less, and get. Get work under your belt that way. You know what I mean? And it will grow. This is a Long term thing, by the way, this isn't something that, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna just be on fire for one month and that's like the rest is history, right? This is a long term thing. Like I'm doing this for the rest of my life, right? I've done it for about 10 years now, and I'm going to do it for the rest of my life. So it's not, it's not a short term thing. You know what I mean? So don't be, don't beat yourself up if it's taking time to grow and to learn, okay? It's not. You're not going to make a ton of money up front. I mean, you might book. I mean, maybe you'll be the person who books a really nice job that pays you, you know, a couple thousand dollars, you know, right off the bat. But that's, that's very unusual and it's not something that happens every day. So, you know, I would say the last part of all of this, and I've really grown to believe this more and more over the years. Join a community somewhere, even if it's not Veo Journey Academy. Join somewhere that you feel connected with, that has positive people, vibrant, you know, participation. That is, that got that they have your back. They're not just educating you. There's a lot, there's the education you need. You can reach people, you can talk to them. And not just the instructors, you know, I mean, we have, we have a bunch of instructors, but we have such an incredible community. Who is there to help you. At any moment, you ask a question and that I'm telling you, you guys, that is invaluable. It is so invaluable, especially since we live in our closets or like, I'm in my, I'm in a closet. Well, I call it a closet. Is a. In my, the house I have now, I built this space because, you know, I renovated the home so I was able to build a space when everything was torn out. But it's like a closet. I'm in a closet. We live, we're in booths, we're by ourselves. So, you know, this is something that it is, it is so important to have contact with people who can help you. So that would be my final advice. And that is, ooh, that's a lot in 30 some minutes of how to get started and get to your first job. But I think that should get you started and get you on the way. Share this with somebody who's brand new too if they need it. And as always, don't be afraid to message me. Email me. Right, Message me. Go to vo'sjourney.com, you can send me a message there. Or academyvoices.com, send me a message there. Although Vo's journey is where you'd send it, just do the contacts and hey, I got a question. Or hey, I'd love you to cover this topic on your podcast. I'm telling you, I've got hundreds of questions here from amazing voice actors to cover, but I'm always open for new ones. So I'd love to hear from you guys. Thank you for listening. As always, you're amazing. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Best of luck in your voiceover career and your journey. And keep listening because you know I'm stepping in it and trying to help you. Not. All right, you guys, take it easy. Peace.