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The (very basic) Business Side of Voice Over, by Gregory Best
A Quick Look at the Business Side of VO Many in the voice over world are uncomfortable with the business side of the profession. It is a business and you must treat it like one. With that go all the normal business functions such as sales, marketing, and accounting. These and other business duties will take far more of your time than rehearsing, tracking and editing, unless you are so successful that you can hire others to handle the business side for you. Not many of us can do that yet – but we’re working on it. Until, then in addition to acting and voice over classes, read up on business and maybe take a class. The knowledge and skills will come in handy. Marketing is all the stuff you do to bring potential clients to your doorstep, or in our case a website. You MUST have web presence. You will if you are part of Voice123. Marketing should be a part of what you do each day. It may be sending post cards, emails, making cold calls, or following up with old clients. It is getting you name, your brand, and your message out there along with the value you bring to a project. While the “sale” occurs after you’ve gotten and captured the attention of the potential client. The sales effort is convincing or persuading them why it should be you. There are thousands out there that may sound similar to you. How are you going to differentiate you from everyone else? This is where you are selling “you”. What do you offer that is more or different from the next VO person? What value do you bring to then project? How can you ad more value? Are you qualified to fully produce the project, including music and SFX? Do you have a top notch home studio? Do you have other talent available that you work with in case they need another voice? Look at things that make you more valuable to the potential client. Sales and marketing are intertwined. Don’t forget bookkeeping and accounting functions. Yes they may seem like drudgery, but they are very important. You need to be able to track your income and expense for tax purposes, and to see how you are doing profit wise. We are in this to make a profit, at least most of us. You will also need to track billing or invoicing clients and the dreaded receivables. Yes, receivables and collections may be part of your duties too. A good accounting program will help you in this area and many will create invoices for you to either email (which I prefer) or mail. Those tax records too. Contracts are simply agreements. Contracts can be oral or written, simple or complex. You probably want to keep it on the simple side. If you approach someone in the business with a very complicated contract they will likely go elsewhere. There are a lot of examples of various contracts out there. Contracts help make it clear what terms the parties agreed upon. In the end, contracts are only as good as the money and time you want to spend enforcing them if they are breached. It is something you will need to way after someone has stiffed you on a deal. Again, contracts are very good at spelling out what each party’s duties and expectations are in the deal. Collections are an uncomfortable area for many of us, but necessary. A friendly reminder first may help. Your letters or emails should become progressively more firm until you get payment. Try not to be threatening unless absolutely necessary and you are willing to write off that client. Get payment before you deliver the final product when ever you can. How much time and money you want to spend trying to collect from a dead beat is up to you. After a point, you may be better off spending your time marketing for new work and write off the bad debt. It may be tax deductible. |
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May, 2012
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