Freelance VO Survival: Pt 4 – Continuing Education

Rejection and what to do about it when it happens to voice talent and freelancers was covered in my previous post, Freelance VO Survival: Pt 3 – Rejection.

Review:

1. Rejection is not about you. Many things will influence a person’s decision not to book you for the job. These are out of your control.
2. You don’t have an exclusive membership to Club Rejection. Almost everyone who freelances has heard ‘no’.
3. Make an effort to prevent rejection by existing clients. After being booked for a job, deliver on customer service and do what it takes to create a repeat client.

 

Grow What You Know

You know as much as you did yesterday and the same as you will tomorrow. Huh? That’s what happens when you push education to the far back burner or entirely off the stove. Johnny 5, from the 80s movie Short Circuit, needed constant input and so do you.

Staying up to date with current trends in the market, approaches to your craft, and new methods or technologies will help keep you marketable and traveling knowledgeably down the road to freelance happiness.

“You are your greatest asset. Put your time, effort and money into training, grooming, and encouraging your greatest asset.”
-Tom Hopkins

Increase your chances of becoming or remaining a successful voice professional (or other freelancer). I’ve come up with 5 ways to include continuing education in your professional life. One or two (or maybe all!) will resonate with you.

WorkShops

There are ongoing opportunities to participate in workshops, either in person or virtually. They cover a wide range of genres and offer techniques to improve your game.

Nothing beats a second pair of ears that are finely tuned to the intricacies of voice-over or narration. The feedback is valuable and yours to keep. You are given the opportunity to play with other talents and discover new ways of doing what you love.

I’ve participated in a number of workshops lead in person by the hugely talented Pat Fraley. He makes the learning process memorable and is never afraid to push students to give their best performance.

David Goldberg from Edge Studio, whose booth direction knowledge is quite impressive, is particularly good at identifying issues with script reads and providing tools to improve interpretation and delivery. I’ve spent hours with David in virtual groups and never leave disappointed.

Classes of 8 to 10 students are best. This gives you plenty of focused mic time and the opportunity to get to know your peers better. The group environment allows for safe critiques that are never meant to tear you down, but to build your confidence and expand your skill set.

School Days

Your voice-over business survives because you’ve got the skills needed behind a mic and you’re good at business. Right? Are you lacking in the business part of the success equation? A class or two at your local college or university may be what’s needed.

Interested in marketing and finding ways to leverage social media? A class on new media marketing might be the ticket.

Want to build a website on your own so you can have total control without the need of a webmaster? An HTML class will come in very handy.

Sharpening writing skills is another area to consider. Sure, you can sound convincing reading other people’s words, but writing coherently in a way that screams professional is just not in your bag of tricks. Yeah, some focused classroom time in a business or creative writing course is just the thing you need.

Other training to consider: public speaking, computer software, business, and audio editing.

Virtually Study

Would you rather study independently at your own pace? Is there something you’d like to learn that doesn’t necessarily require a structured class with an instructor? You’re in luck. The interweb is full of choices.

At no cost to you other than time, YouTube is indispensable when it comes to learning how to do something, complete with video. Granted, there are some YouTube experiences that are better than others. A good way to gauge the value of a video is to read the comments left by other viewers.

To get you started, I’ve compiled a list of six YouTube series that have a focus on voice-over in my post Watch and Learn – 6 Video Series for Voice Talents.

Podcasts are another method for learning. There are many specific to voice-overs and the list continues to grow. Podcasts have the convenience of being passive content. You can listen to a podcast while baking cookies for instance or something less fun like laundry.

For some ideas, check out my recommended podcasts and those suggested by readers.

• 12 Voiceover Podcasts You Should Not Miss (Pt 1)
• 12 Voiceover Podcasts You Should Not Miss (Pt 2)
• 5 Reader Recommended VO Podcasts Not to Miss

Ménage à Group

Spending all day in a studio by one’s self can make for a complacent, “I know everything!” attitude. If that’s the case, take what you know to a professional group and share your knowledge.

Professional groups are looking for participants just like you. And who knows, you might find something you didn’t know. Huh.

Start small with the local ones. Maybe there’s a meetup group that’s all about improv or acting in general. With some luck there maybe even one with a focus on voice acting. If not, here’s your chance to find some like-minded folks and start the group yourself.

Want to improve your public speaking chops? Toastmasters International seems to be in every community, large and small. It’s a great way to meet folks (maybe even clients!) and learn the tricks of public speaking.

On a grander scale are the annual mass get-togethers. These voice-over specific events take place several times a year and feature a number of opportunities to mingle with your peers, talk about the biz in breakout sessions, and share ideas over a coffee or dinner.

A few came to mind while writing this and Voice Talent, Rhonda Phillips’ blog post lists more.

• FaffCon
• VO Atlanta
• That’s Voiceover!
• WoVO (membership required)

Finally, the internet is a tap or click away from many online gatherings of like-minded people. Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and other social portals allow easy connection to professionals who share what they know, mostly for FREE! What a screamin’ deal.

To single out one would indicate I favor it over the others. No, not so. They each have something to offer and like other areas of your profession, it’ll take a bit of trying them out for yourself. Some will work for the level you’re at currently. Others may not make sense until you’ve been in the biz awhile.

Rhonda also came up with the group participation opportunities on Facebook. Her post includes an extensive list of groups, way more than I thought there were. I belong to 4 or 5, Rhonda lists close to 50!

Facebook Voiceover Groups Galore

Continuing Education – No Longer Just for Brainiacs

Quality, price and delivery are parts of the freelance business you’ll be dealing with daily. Learn how to handle them better, more efficiently, and more competitively. You are in competition with every other freelancer who does your thing. Make the effort to distinguish yourself. With global access, competition has never been more fierce.

What to Remember

Make a positive effort to schedule time for research, taking a class, attending a webinar, or get involved with a peer group.

1. You are your best investment. To be ahead of everybody else, learn what that means.
2. Learn as much as you want. The opportunities for learning can be as long as a semester class or as short as a YouTube video.
3. To Group or not to group, it’s your choice. Participation with other freelancers has the benefit of socializing: training on your own has the benefit of a more quite learning experience at a time you control.

Need More?

Looking for information that supports the importance of continuing education for freelancers? An article written by Angel Kwiatkowski of Cohere Coworking Community in Fort Collins, Colorado is one you should check out.

Why continuing education is essential for freelancers

What methods of continuing education work well for you? Leave your comments below.

Next time: (Pt 5) Push Yourself

Feeling comfortable and cozy in your current phase of building your voice-over or other freelance career? It’s time to shake things up.

© 2016 J. Christopher Dunn

Freelance VO Survival: Pt 3 – Rejection

 

In Freelance VO Survival: Pt 2 – Motivation, I offered some great tips on how to stay motivated on your way to a successful voice-over career.

Review:

1. Know your motivator.  It’s that one thing that drives you to do the thing you do.
2. Being self-motivated is liberating. You decide how to become motivated and develop disciplined to stay on track.
3. Motivation helpers make it easy. Find activities and develop habits that help keep you motivated. Stick with the ones that work. Be open to new ideas that might work better.

Flashback

If you’ve ever worked a job other than freelancing, you know getting called into the boss’s office to discuss anything negative is deflating. Rejection sucks and being told ambiguously that something needs to be different or better without the benefit of being told what needs improvement can cause a spontaneous head explosion. POP!!!

The Here and Now

When you make the choice to become a voice actor or other freelancer, it’s easy to get blinded by the sheen of unicorns and the brilliance of rainbows when you hear that work is abundant, more than enough for everybody.

It sounds positive and rejection-free. All you do is open up a personal studio and start auditioning or sending out proposals.

Rejection is ongoing for freelancers and it happens in a batch of all new ways.

• Your quote is over budget.
• Your style is not what they were looking for.
• Too old. Too young.
• Too American.  Not American enough.
• Decided to use a male instead of a female.  Decided to use a female instead of a male.
• Prospect decided to go in a different direction (they’ve hired somebody else) and gave no reason.
• No response to your audition, simple quote or proposal.

Get the point?

Don’t focus on the rejection. It’s not about you personally. Instead learn how to make lemonade out of the lemons that come your way.

You Are in Good Company

There is no one in the business of voice-over, or other freelance work for that matter, who has not been rejected. Let that sink in a moment.

Risk is involved with your choice to freelance. You’ll be meeting knew clients and taking on projects you never thought you would. The way to get what you want is to remember not to be afraid of the word no.

“I really wish I was less of a thinking man and more of a fool not afraid of rejection.”
-Billy Joel

Countless voice talents have gone before you, and had they given up, would not be where they wanted to be, where they saw themselves. The word ‘no’ is part of the freelance equation. If yes was easy to get, everybody would be a freelancer.

It’s About Them

After submitting an audition to a client for consideration, you hear back from them that they’ve found the talent they were looking for–elsewhere. They’ll keep you in mind for future work.

There are a number of things that could have had an effect on that talent seeker’s decision. Their mood because of the speeding ticket earned on the way to work. Their mental state affected by a venti latte they dumped on themselves. They think you sound like their ex-wife or estranged father. The list of potentially pointless craziness is limited only by imagination and there is nothing about you they are attacking.

“If I went by all the rejection I’ve had in my career, I should have given up a long time ago.”
-Mike Myers

Since you’re a pro at what you do, the audition you submitted was amazing. Just because they felt it wasn’t a good fit for what they were looking for, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have worked for somebody else.

Another way to look at it: just because a red car isn’t right for you, doesn’t mean it’s not right for somebody else looking for a car. Make sense?

Keep Going

“I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.”
-Sylvester Stallone

Why are some voice actors booking while others only hear about amazing projects?

Talent aside, are those people being hired better at marketing themselves? Is it because their website and business cards were designed by an award winning studio? Do they take risks and continue to stretch their talents?

Hmmm… Maybe it’s the way they handle rejection.

It takes several ‘no’ prospects to get to a ‘yes’ client. If you give up on yourself before hearing yes, you’ll never understand your potential. It is a good idea to evaluate as you go and make adjustments as needed. Truthfully ask yourself why a high rate of no responses are coming your way. Be willing to make changes. Perseverance is a trait of successful freelancers of any type.

The Delightfulness of Yes

There’s more to yes than landing a gig. What you do after receiving a job is to grow your client’s happiness. That’s what keeps them returning for more.

“Sometimes I feel my whole life has been one big rejection.”
-Marilyn Monroe

Keep on top of communication with your new client. Respond to their e-mail and phone calls in a timely manner. Ask questions when in doubt about something in their script. Be interested in their project. Meet their deadlines. Or better yet, deliver early. Be willing to do what it takes to keep them, within reason of course.

And, follow up with them after delivery of your audio files to make sure they have everything they need.

Avoid reasons for their rejection.

It’s Not Easy

Put yourself in the seat of the producer who listens to dozens of auditions, trying to find the sound that’ll match their project. It’s hard.

“You get used to the rejection and you don’t take it personally.”
-Daniel Craig

Making a choice is difficult when considering several equally talented people. And, nobody enjoys the process of telling everybody else they’ve made a decision that’s favoring another person.

When you’ve been told another talent has been selected for the project, be gracious and thank the producer for their time. Remember, this isn’t about you.

Most often you’ll not hear back when you’re not the one selected. And if you’re told they’ll keep you in mind for other projects, don’t consider it as lip service. I’ve had clients reach out to me for subsequent projects when I was the best fit.

Rejection Happens

Have a thin skin? Make an effort to build one thicker and resilient. And, keep in mind, you can do everything right and still not get booked. Detach and move forward.

What to Remember

1. Rejection is not about you. Many things will influence a person’s decision not to book you for the job. These are out of your control.
2. You don’t have an exclusive membership to Club Rejection. Most everyone who freelances has heard ‘no’.
3. Make an effort to prevent rejection by existing clients. After being booked for a job, deliver on customer service and do what it takes to create a repeat client.

Looking for additional ways of dealing with rejection? Check the article written by Creative Business Coach and Author of “Resilience: Facing Down Rejection and Criticism on the Road to Success”, Mark McGuinness.

How to Handle Rejection and Criticism as a Freelancer

What are your thoughts about rejection?
How do you handle it when rejection comes your way?
Are there ideas in this post that you’ll consider?

Leave your comments below.

Next time: (Pt 4) Continuing Education

You should know more today about your chosen freelance path than you did yesterday but not as much as you will tomorrow. It’s important for your business to grow and one of the best ways to help with that is education.

© 2016 J. Christopher Dunn

Freelance VO Survival: Pt 2 – Motivation

In Freelance VO Survival: Pt 1 – Find Work, I told you how to get your new freelance business noticed, which leads to getting work.

1. You are now a hunter! Work used to come to you unavoidably. Now you need to find work so your freelance business thrives.
2. Tell everybody you’re a freelancer. One of the best methods of getting booked is to tell people you’re available and looking for work.
3. Use multiple types of networking methods. Social media, e-mail, phone and in-person meetings are all business development tools.

Unmotivated

What drives you to keep traveling the freelance path?

• Passion for what you do?
• To earn money?
• Meet new clients?
• The overwhelming desire to please?

In this article, I’ll focus on motivation or the end result you have in mind while doing your thing.

Self-motivation is an important trait to develop for growing your business and becoming a successful freelancer.

The Daily Grind

When you had your reliable, full time gig, the motivation to perform was typically driven by the manager you reported to. This was the person who had the company’s best interests in mind and reminded you constantly what you should do next. Of course you wanted a paycheck as well. Money is a good motivator.

As a freelancer, the weight of motivation falls squarely on your shoulders. You’ll move your focus from performance, which is still important, to survival. Creating a distraction-free environment to do your best work is a start.

Once you find work, you’ll notice immediately you can get more of it done. Working as a freelancer removes corporate diversions and reduces drop-everything-now interruptions.

The Same But Different

Being motivated to stay focused on what needs to get done for yourself is different than working to complete several, unrelated, time-sucking projects on other people’s timelines. Yes, you’ll have clients with needs and schedules and since you’re the boss of your business, you’ll have more say in how those schedules come together. However, the key to working is motivation. You own it now.

Keeping motivation going can be tricky. The discipline to be self-motivated sounds so hard.

I’ve developed motivation helpers that keep me consistent from day to day and allow flexibility to make adjustments when needed.

The Brain Cleanse

My day starts early with a walk. This is ‘me’ time and my motivation is to finish the walk feeling mentally ready for the day. I clear my head of junk that’s distracting. Think about the positive aspects of what I accomplished the day before and day dream about how I’d like to see my business in the future.

Fueled for Performance

My body needs fuel to perform so breakfast is important. Low sugar, high-protein choices are best. Crashing an hour after you eat is not a good thing. Find the foods that keep your body fueled for a couple of hours at least, and have a quick mid-morning nutritional snack that will keep you going until lunch. Keep your body motivated.

Consistent Game Time

Starting your day at a specific time will motivate you to get a good night’s sleep; get out of bed at a realistic hour; and complete your morning ritual. Determine what your core hours will be and surround them with one to three hours of support time. Be ready to do the first thing on your daily list and feel confident you’re going to get it done.

Check Off

One of the best ways for me to get through the day is to make a list of to-dos. I’ve created a boiler plate framework that lets me arrange my schedule and add additional items as needed. I typically plan out my day the night before. This helps me stay on track and motivated to work as efficiently as possible. When I complete an item, I get the satisfaction of checking it off. It feels great!

Work, Reward, Repeat

Starting a project can be its own roadblock. That first effort can be tough to make. You might think about doing something else first, something more enjoyable than the thing you’re putting off doing.

Instead of doing the fun thing first, I recommend you reward yourself with it after you get the task done. This provides motivation to start work with the goal of completion for reward. Plus, if you use a list you get the bonus feeling of checking it off.

Your Personal Guide

If you could put into a short phrase what you set out to do in your freelance business, how would it sound? Mine is,

“Delight customers with ready to use, genuinely human, spoken word audio.”

With that In mind, I’m motivated to deliver consistent results with the target of exceeding my client’s expectations. My business is based on happy clients, who will then be repeat clients. And since they’re happy with what I did for them, they’ll tell other people to use my services.

Friendly Motivation

Nothing beats a good conversation with a peer. Find groups or meetups of people you can have work-related discussions with. Bouncing ideas and issues off other professionals is a great way to brainstorm. Just because you are a freelancer, doesn’t mean you should be isolated and work in a vacuum.

If groups aren’t your thing, set up a 10-minute check-in phone call every morning with somebody to keep each other on track. Share possible solutions to tricky situations. Offer encouragement. Keep each other motivated.

Motivation Could be Right for You

With a few motivation helpers in place, you might find the quality of what you do improves. Keep track of what worked well as a motivator. Was it the walk before you started your day? Maybe it was setting a daily goal of contacting at least one new potential client. What works is the action you should continue.

What to Remember

1. Know your motivator. You’ll have a least one thing that drives you to do the thing you do.
2. Being self-motivated is liberating. You decide how to be motivated and become disciplined to stay on track.
3. Motivation helpers make it easy. Find activities and develop habits that help keep you motivated. Stick with the ones that work. Be open to new ideas that might work better.

Need More?

Looking for additional examples of motivation? An article written by Forbes Contributor, Paul Tassi, features several more ways to consider.

“11 Ways To Stay Motivated While Working From Home”

Is there something motivating you to continue what you’re doing? Leave your comments below.

Next time: (Pt 3) Rejection

There is no such thing as rejection immunity. But, there are ways to deal with rejection and criticism that will allow you to move forward and not take it personally.

© 2015 J. Christopher Dunn