It means playing the numbers game, on two fronts: booking gigs, and building your skillset.
The great part? Both booking more voiceover gigs (which = making more $), AND building/increasing your level of skill, are interconnected.
Soooo, in order to increase your skills, and therefore, your perceived vaule to clients & your cashflow from voiceovers, you need more Reps. As it is with any skill in life, Repetition with micro-Adjustments to your approach, lead you to the mastery of it. That old adage: “practice makes perfect.”
In essence, it’s a matter of Cause and Effect. If the desired Effect is more success in the voiceover industry, you need to put more energy and action out there (Cause, or practice), into the market. That means you need to be doing it, over and over and over and over and over and over and over, again.
The hidden gem in Practicing in the voiceover industry?
Each practice swing has the ability to make you money (It’s like your practice swings in a batting cage have the ability to count as homeruns and base hits in a real game. Furthermore, you can’t “strike out” in the batting cage). You get the upside, without the downside.
{See this article on Demystifying The Voiceover Audition from Home for details on how I actively audition for Voiceovers, beyond the Voiceover Demo that’s on my agent’s website}
How does this become #massiveaction?
A slow week will have 2–3 v.o. auditions, a busier one, I’ll hit 6–8 (I love those weeks!). So, if I average 4–5 a week, that’s 4–5 chances of gigs for the upcoming couple of weeks, and I continue to pump out 4–5 the next week, and the next. So, on average, I’ll pump out 16–20 auditions, or “at-bats,” a month.
Now, all this effort (read: Cause) will hit a point of Critical Mass, where you will start to book the actual voiceover gigs/bookings. And each of these bookings has the ability to turn into recurring gigs.
How can they turn into recurring gigs?
Each booking is an opportunity to show your unique, and genuine, professionalism, efficiency, and personality, to both the client AND just as important, if not more so, the Ad Agents, Editors, and Sound Engineers.
If the Client really likes you, they may bring you back in for more commercial spots or industrials.
If the Ad Agents, Editors, and Sound Engineers like you, they’ll talk about you to their peers in the industry, recommend you to their other clients, and maybe just want to have you back in the studio, because they genuinely like you. It’s an industry based on people: professional relationships where we all work as a team to achieve a goal to the mutual benefit of everyone involved.
Oh, and also have fun doing it as well.
And guess what?
The recurring bookings, layered on top of the continuing flow of auditions each week/month, continue to build and build.
So audition & make adjustments, audition & make adjustments, audition & make adjustments, ad nauseum; and reap the Rewards and Effects of the #massiveaction you’ve deployed in the world of voiceover.
Happy Voiceover-ing! :o)