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Voice Coaches Radio #573 – How Difficult is it REALLY?!

Voice Coaches Radio. Everything voiceover.

Welcome to a brand new episode of Voice Coaches Radio. I'm Marissa and I hope that this is finding you well. As we keep navigating, getting closer to spring, I am just hoping to God that the groundhog was wrong back in February because I don't like being cold. I say that as I have an ice pack on my wrist.

Do I know what I did? No, the answer is very much no, uh, but it seems like it's a little swollen and it has been hurting to, to like, I don't know, move in general, um, not like really bad, but like bad enough where I'm like, you know what? Maybe I should try to like baby that a little bit. I'm getting old. I don't know.

Maybe I slept wrong. On my wrist? I don't know. You know how you like wake up and your neck's all tweaked and like your back is like, I don't know why we decided that was a good position, but I feel like maybe my, my wrist is also doing that. Have I slept wrong multiple nights in a row? There is a good possibility.

What is wrong, honestly? Uh, I've been hearing different things, like you're not supposed to sleep on your side, really, and you're definitely not supposed to sleep on your stomach, and I do both those things. Uh, but my asthma doesn't really allow me to lay on my back very comfortably. So, uh, sorry, body, you just have to deal with me as I have to deal with you, I guess.

But, um, I have been taking, like I have said before, some, some listener and student questions always. I like to try to dive into some of the stuff that I have been, uh, dealing with personally with voice as well at times. Always getting guests on if you ever have anything that you want us to talk about on the pod something that you've been pondering something That's been kind of like I just don't know, you know, I feel like I need to bounce something off somebody That is what the pod is here for info at voice coaches radio.

com Actually, that's the wrong email scratch that info at voice coaches calm Info at voice coaches calm and clearly I'm doing a lot of editing here but But, that being said, I have had some questions coming in lately, and it's regarding work, you know? It's like, you start wanting to get into voiceover, and at first for people, it's just shocking that there are so many opportunities out there, like, just the fact that voices are everywhere you turn, you know, it's like, not just on the radio, and not just on TV, but it's like, Walking around in some public building and then there's a voiceover, some sort of intercom, you're walking on the subway, there's another voice, you're in the airport, there's another voice, it's like you're listening to a podcast, hello, this is also another voice, right, like it's like you're listening to an audio book or a self help book or, you know, some educational piece because you're trying to learn something, uh, for your job or for your own personal enjoyment, it's like voices are all over the place, video games, things Apps, um, you know, voicemails.

So how do you get the work? Right? Like, that's always the biggest question next. And that is what Kate kind of sent in to me on Instagram. It's like, cool, you know, I've recorded my demo, but like, now what? Like, I don't really know where to look to find work. Now, if you are a voice coach's student, then yeah, there is a lot of material that does help you navigate.

And it is found right there. In your student portal. So if you are a student that is listening, that is in your portal. Okay. And she knows that because she, that was the next part of what she said. She goes, I know they just haven't looked at it yet. I'm getting there. Um, but that's my question. Um, so that, you know, as a student, it's there, you know, stuff, some stuff that we can kind of go over real quick is just, you know, Some of the, the places to, to be thinking about looking, you know, I, I, another question that I, I had seen recently too was like, excuse me, how, how difficult is it really to get a job?

How difficult is it to get any job? I mean when you really think about it, you know, I guess we're, we're always walking through life and we're just kind of following our comfort zone in a lot of ways and when we go out and we get that We get a job in an office, you know, we get a job in a call center, we get a job at a gas station or wherever.

It's like We don't look at that as a difficult thing, right? That seems like, oh, well, that was easy. You know, I got that job. Um, but it might just be because you were qualified. You know, it's like you stood out amongst the crowd of whoever was applying. That's the same thing here. So when it comes to difficulty on getting jobs, I don't want to say that it's easy or it's hard.

It's, it all comes back to what you're putting into it, not just in the... audition itself per se, because here's the thing, we hear the word audition and we get a little freaked out, right? Guess what a job interview is? It's an audition. You really just have to just flip the terminology. It is thinking outside the box.

It's, it's, you know, thinking and looking at it a little bit differently. An interview is an audition. Your audition is just your interview. All right. So, I mean, how many people may have applied for that same job that you're going for, whether it's In the voiceover industry or not, it's, it's comparable in so many ways.

So, you always want to take that into consideration. It's just like you're, you're looking, don't, don't look at it like, Oh my God, this is like a goal that's not attainable. It, it is attainable. Just like you getting that office job is attainable. You getting a voiceover job is also attainable. It's what you're putting into it.

So, Um, easy or difficult. It's, it's, it's all, it's like tomato, tomato, honestly. Um, you know, you, you might not get the gig that you wanted, but you also didn't necessarily get the office gig that you wanted either. You know, it's like you kind of take these stepping stones, stones to get to where you want to be.

And you just keep growing and keep growing and keep getting better and more qualified for whatever's next. Right. So it's the same thing with voiceover. Um, so again, easy, difficult. Tomato, tomato, but when it comes to where to even start looking, there are so many places to start looking, you know, like, where would you go ahead and find any other job?

Can you find voiceover gigs on indeed? I don't know. I haven't really looked there. Um, but there's constantly things that I see popping up, whether it's. Um, you know, whether I'm just doing a search online, um, there's websites like ACX that you can go ahead and audition freely for audible, uh, you know, not everything on there is paid, but it is experienced per se, you know, like when it comes down to it at the end of the day, like, you know, you might get a project that's royalty share base that ends up being a situation where it's like, if that book sells, sure, you're going to get something, but, you know, if it doesn't, it's like, yeah.

You still kind of got something. You got experience. So, it's like you, it's a win win situation there. Especially if you haven't gotten anything yet. You know, you want to keep growing and getting better. So, a good site is ACX. But, you know, we had McKenzie. On the podcast a couple weeks ago, she was talking about how, like, she had just moved to a new city, and it was all about her diving into the local chamber of commerce.

You know, we will always tell you to navigate things locally to start, because who can you build the best relationships with? The people that are directly in front of you. Right. It's all about that relationship building process, all this work I've been doing, you know, I, you know, I, I say this a lot, it's, it's the fact that I'm in radio, some people get confused.

It's like, well, what does that have to do with voiceover? It's everything's the same. You know, there aren't always scripts involved, but the, the way that you navigate the industry is all the same. It's just, it's a little bit of a different part of the industry. You know, all the work I'm doing is because of the relationships I had built over the course of my career.

And, yeah. I'm still in that process now of like, all right, well, how can I build new relationships? How can I build more relationships? How can I get additional work by, by doing that? Um, and you know, I'm, I'm kind of doing it slowly, honestly, because I am doing quite a bit and I feel like I do need that little bit of downtime these days.

Cause I was going so hard for so long, uh, that my body's like, Hey, just. Just relax a little bit, you know, it's, it's necessary sometimes, but you do want to be building those relationships and a local chamber of commerce is a great way to do it. I always like to tell people, it's like, well, think about the kind of work that you want to do.

And Write it down, you know, and it's like, okay, well, where, where might that kind of work be? You know, what kind of businesses do that kind of thing or are looking for that kind of thing? You know, maybe you're over there like, I really want to do training material. Like I want to do the videos for when people are starting a brand new job.

I want to do that training material. You can reach out to almost any business in any industry and probably. Start asking questions of like, well, do you, like, I I, you might not be the person that I need to talk to, but could you guide me to who I may need to reach out to in order to, um, you know, pass along my demo to, to do your training modules at some point?

Um, I would really love to, you know, just to pick somebody's brain about it. Like, it, it's just, it's a matter of not being scared to, to do that. So. There are so many different ways to navigate this industry. I think the best thing for you to do from the beginning is to really understand what kind of work do you want to do.

And if it's some wild goal that might be slightly unattainable in the moment of like, I want to be a Disney princess. Okay. Let's start smaller. All right. Let's go down to the basics here real quick. And maybe it's starting by doing kids books. So maybe you get online, you look up some publishers, maybe you go online and you go to ACX and you just see what's on there.

Um, and do something for free and like play around a little bit, you know, but. So get, get yourself understanding where you should start, you know, and then where could I find that work and then start navigating in, in the research of finding out where those businesses may be that you can start reaching out to and just never let your practice stop along the way.

Okay. You can do all the research about finding the work, but I want your, your skills and your growth process in those skills to keep, keep going, keep going, keep growing, right? That's the best motto to have. So, any questions that you have that you want tackled here on the pod, always, always reach out.

Info at voicecoaches. com. Again, info at voicecoaches. com. More interviews with former students and, uh, you know, more, more questions of yours to be answered coming up next week, uh, right here with Voice Coaches Radio. Stay safe, everybody. Visit voicecoaches. com for more voiceover news and information.

This week on Voice Coaches Radio, Marissa dives into how difficult it really is to land the gig! Is it harder than it seems? Easier?