Have you ever been walking somewhere down the street and that little voice inside your head comes to life? It may tell you to turn and go the other way or to look behind you, helping you avoid possible danger. Being aware of your surroundings will help you stay as safe as you can be and prevent accidents. Nothing is 100% safe, but trusting your gut is important. I tell my kids all the time, if you are aware of what’s going on around you and not your phone, you’re already better than 90% of the people out there.
I was in Paris in 2012 with my wife. As you may know, pickpocketing is a big problem over there. There are signs all over the place warning people to watch their wallets. We were coming out of the Metro station when I happened to lock eyes with a dude over on the other side of the entrance. I saw him immediately turn and start heading in the direction we were going that would have intercepted us. I grabbed my wife’s arm and guided her on a different path. She protested at first, but soon realized there was a reason for the detour. I trusted my gut and possibly avoided some sort of incident.
Voiceover is a place where you need to be able to listen to your gut feelings. Not your gut as in it’s time for lunch, but that feeling you get when something just isn’t right. Is a voice job too good to be true? It might be a scam. When you reach out to that coach or demo producer and it costs a lot more than you feel like it should and you’re not really seeing an upside for you and you feel you’re just lining the pockets of someone else? Might be worth more research before signing on the line. Seeing flashy ads online for “You can earn $$$ just from reading scripts at home” or “Give me 5 minutes and I’ll show you how to get into the wonderful world of voiceover”? What does your gut say? Considering the majority of voice talent make less than $8,000 a year and those who are out there working book maybe 1 out of every 100 auditions, does voiceover seem to be easy?
It’s hard knowing who you can trust and who’s out there taking advantage of new and naive talent. Going to confrences and seeing how things are going has taught me a lot as to where money is being made in this industry. The majority of the classes I took where a 30,000 foot view of a voiceover topic like promo, trailer, animation, marketing, branding etc and it always ended with “you can sign up for my class/coaching/seminar/book”. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with making some money coaching or guiding talent. If I could do that I would. The talent need to be able to go into those agreement with open eyes, trusting their guts on whether or not those on the coaching or demo side are on the up and up.
How do you know who to work with? In my experience, I will work with those who I have developed a relationship with already. People I know. I’m not going jump in to spending thousands with someone that I don’t know as a friend already. I’m not going to call a big time demo producer and say, here, here’s my money, make me a demo. They don’t know me, I don’t know them. How can they know enough to make me sound the best that I can be? How can I know enough about what they’re going to do so I can be comfortable enough to ask for changes or be able to give my best reads? Trust your gut and get to know these folks.
Trust your gut when it comes to marketing. If you’re getting vibes that what you’re doing ain’t working, then change it. You have to be tuned in to the environment and see the way the winds are changing. Don’t just keep putting out the same content or emailing the same way if you’re not getting somewhere. If you make a mistake, who cares? Everyone does and unless you go on a racial tirade or super insulting message rant, a mistake won’t derail you.
Remember, your gut instinct will rarely steer you wrong. You need to hone it and then listen to it. Want to know how to do that? Well, for a measly $495 I can show you how in my class “Honing Your Gut”.
Sign up today!