Huge thanks to Bob Souer, for his article on VoiceOver Extra this week, about not being a slave to your computer and the inundation of email notices for potential auditions on the pay-to-play sites.
As a relatively new voice talent, I don’t yet have a stream of steady clients (although I have just finished designing my marketing materials and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of various elements so I can begin a big push outside the pay-to-play market — YAAY!), so right now the majority of my work is coming from pay-to-play. And I have to admit that for a while I was, to use Bob’s term, a slave to those incoming emails, sometimes spending hours at a clip in my booth to the point that I realized I hadn’t had lunch yet and it was nearly 4 p.m.!
Now, on the one hand, I do think that auditioning so much has given me a lot of experience. In fact, I can actually tell a distinct difference and see a marked improvement in my performance level in the seven months that I’ve been working in voiceover. But on the other hand, I really was a slave to those emails, to the point where I’d leave late to get the kids from daycare or ask my husband to feed them dinner so I could just audition for “one more thing.”
I mean, haven’t you heard that you’re lucky to book one job for every 20 auditions you do? And if you’re just starting out, you both need the experience and the jobs. But it can make you a little crazy, too, just automatically auditioning for everything that comes into your inbox.
And then came Kristine Oller‘s golden nugget of the week: Are you someone who does six things with stress or three things with ease? Well, Kristine, I’m probably more of a “nine things flying by the seat of my pants” girl. But I want to be a “three with ease” girl.
Sometimes the universe comes together to tell you something. So thank you, Bob and Kristine, for making me slow down, take a deep breath, and realize I don’t have to audition for everything. In fact, I shouldn’t. There are some things that just aren’t a good match for me. If I’m losing interest just reading the sample script, sort of a “skip to the end” mentality, that’s a really great indication that I shouldn’t audition for that job!
Plus, if I’m spending all day auditioning for things, it doesn’t leave me time to work on the other aspects of my business, like that aforementioned marketing campaign, which will hopefully start getting me some clients that I don’t have to audition for all the time.
(By the way, once all the goodies arrive in the mail, I’ll post pics of my marketing presentation. I’m pretty proud of it and hope it will inspire others to get creative!)
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