How to Customise your Voice Over Business

A voice over blog written by Sebastian Brown Voices - never a machine.

In this blog, we're going to talk about how being malleable in your voiceover business is vital in the modern age of voice recording and delivery.

There was a time, which many of my voiceover coaches have told me about, like the history professors from our youth, or the older relatives who speak of a greater time; when voice overs were recorded in house, onto magnetic tape. When skilled professionals travelled the country to record at the few studios who housed such equipment. And the job, I imagine, was through association or previous links to advertising, broadcasting or radio production.

And though I still enjoy the opportunity to record in a studio in London town, for the everyday new voice over, that may well be a rare occurrence.

And with the rise of professional independant voice actors, who do everything from marketing and advertising, social media and networking, studio building and audio engineering, and of course, lets not forget the actual voicing; the need to be able to provide a broad range of customisable skills, is ever more present.

I would love to just do the voicing.

I would love to never have to edit an audiobook again (actually this isn't true because I very much enjoy audio editing).

I would love to outsource more of my business, and maybe in time I will.

But when we talk about customisation, we're not talking about the many hats we have to wear as a voiceover.

We're talking about the adaptability required to move with each client, to understand their specific needs, and to make sure that we aren't just copying and pasting our services, from one client to the next.

Before we take a look at some examples, let's discuss what it is we need to customise:

• Budgets and Quoting: Hold your rates, but be aware that different areas have different budgets.

• Preparation: when do we need to customise our preparation?

• Session Deliverables: How does the client want to go about recording?

• Communication and Engagement: You choose how often a client hears from you, but be aware, not all clients are the same!

• The aftercare process: getting testimonials, reviews and saying thank you.

Ok, so let's dive into these in some more detail :

Budgets and Quoting

Before anything else, I'll say very simply, uphold your rates. But in the world of voiceover, despite having a Basic Session Fee and understanding of the industry rates, there are many different types of voiceover, many different genres of work, and many different end platforms for things to end up on.

When quoting for an e-learning project, a youtube documentary or an online corporate video, there are different things to be taken into consideration.

How long will the project be used or displayed? Do they already have a budget in mind? Are you working on a per word rate or an overall session fee? Where will the project be displayed?

So not only do you have to know these questions in the first place, you have to know how they impact the quote you provide.

Preparation

The question, when do we need to customise our preparation, has a very simple answer.

Always!

In Dian Perrys wonderful book about VO Narration, she provides a fantastic framework for the foundations of your performance. All of those elements can be used again and again to answer questions that help to bring your work to life.

But...

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that you don't have to customize it.

When asking yourself the question, who am I, and who am I talking to, you might also want to consider other, more detailed elements.

Let's say I'm preparing a corporate narration piece about a new Credit Card lender, I could decide that I am the CEO of the company, or a high ranking employee; and I could decide I am talking to the board of the company.

But what does the room look like? What am I wearing? How do I feel about the people I'm talking to? How long have I been in my job? What effect do I want my speech to have?

Now obviously we don't need to write pages and pages about who we are and create a massive backstory, but asking yourself a few questions, and creating solid and actionable answers for them, is how we customise our prep.

And those customizations will change your reads.

For a history documentary, spend a bit of time reading around the subject matter to give you a broader context.

For an e-learning project, educate yourself on the topic its talking about.

For an non fiction audiobook, watch material online that may be related to the books topic.

Customization, is key...

Session Deliverables

Now this is far more practical when it comes to customising what the client wants, and there are certain things that you need to be able to provide.

• Are you doing a live recording session, or a self record? If the client expresses that they would like to do a live session, are you ready to provide?
  

• What time zone is the client in? If the client works in another time zone, can you provide something that works for them. I've done several 1am recording sessions in my time, and keeping your voice warm and sharp can be a bit tricky.

• What type of file does the client want? Always double check what the specific deliverables are that a client is seeking, some people only require an MP3 file, while most will ask for WAV. And when it comes to audio, are they hoping for something that's been edited, or a totally raw recording.

• What about other deliverables? Is a client expecting you to provide music or video editing as well. So many people now are able to wear many hats, and can provide all those services in one. I myself tend to just record, but every now and then I've mixed and mastered my audio with music.

So take these things into account when your consulting with a client, and putting together all the questions to ask them.

Communication and Engagement

As freelancers, we often tread the line between informative and annoying, communicative and pestering.

It's important to keep in touch with your clients, but when is too much too much?

Well, this is a personal process, but when it comes to customization, it's important to gage a clients responses, and their language, to better understand what they want.

Are they chatty? Do they reply to every email? Do they use relaxed and informal language? Are they active with you on social media?

All of these are clues as to how you tailor your approach. Maybe they don't want to receive endless marketing emails, but they do like and share your posts, so you find that reminding them of your services via social media is better. Perhaps they are always posting on LinkedIn, so maybe that's a better place to interact with them. Perhaps they are just silent, in which case an email or a catch up on social media could both be effective, or entirely wasted.

Clients use different platforms, so don't be disheartened if someone doesn't interact with you right away, investigate, explore, and discover what works best for them.

The Aftercare Process

Much like communication and engagement, the aftercare process can be tailored to you and your clients, and customised based on your own preferences.

But this idea ties into everything we do. With the rise of AI and the ability to create endless amounts of fake content in seconds, how is it that we (well the majority of us) can still spot the fake?

The email template that we know everyone else has received.

The thank you note that is simply copy and pasted.

And this is where we come to the crux of customisation, its takes time and effort. It takes diligence and detail.

How do you thank a client for working with you? Do you send them an email? Do you send them a gift at the end of the year? Do you tag them in a post on social media?

How do you get testimonials for your voice over business? Do you ask them via email? Do you point them towards you google business page? Do you ask them to review you on a P2P or freelancing site?

Customise your aftercare process to make sure that you're clients know its coming from you, and that you mean it.

Examples

Now that we've discussed some of the ins and outs of voiceover customisation, let's look at 2 simple examples of work I did last year, and some of the customizable differences, to make it all clear and round things off.

Example 1: Non Fiction Audiobook for British Publisher.

Approached by a producer I work with often, I was asked to audition for a nonfiction book.

I read the sample, did some research, and submitted an audition.

The end client liked my voice, but asked if I could be more journalistic, and pointed me towards a sample of someone else talking, and what they wanted to hear more of.

So I had to take notes of the style of speech, and the more conversational, relaxed and investigative nature of the piece, and customize my prep accordingly.

I watched more news interviews about the topic, and delved into the world of investigative journalism.

The rates for this project were set, there was no negotiation, so I could either accept or not. Of course I accepted because they were paying the UK standard for audiobooks. But of course those rates differ between certain companies, and definitely from the UK to the US.

After recording they needed raw audio files in wav format.

And for the pickups they used a system called Pozotron, so you have to familiarise yourself with the formatting, and the way the pickups need to be delivered.

Lots of different things that need to be adapted to, and customised to fit the project.

Example 2: Corporate Video Series about Sustainability.

Last year I was lucky enough to be approached by the wonderful folks at RSK, and they asked me to produce a series of videos for their online outreach when it came to certain sustainability initiatives.

So, we worked out the online usage, and quoted them the Basic Studio Fee and Usage for one year online display. Luckily they accepted the rate, and there was no need to negotiate further.

The project was recorded over a series of weeks, as four different scripts were ready at different times. This meant ensuring that I could repeat the desired style over and over again, this is where consistency in your skill and audio setup is very important.

We also worked out that we needed to do two recordings of each project, one that was a slower pace, and one that was faster, another customization that was decided to ensure that the client had options.

But, the recording was all done solo, and the clients themselves trusted me to put together everything for them.

So you can see from both those examples, that if you're working across different areas of voiceover, there is a lot of customisation that can happen.

Remember, tailor your approach to each individual client.

Happy Voicing,

SBVO.