Where's the truth gone?

It has been nearly 3 years since writing a blog post. Shame on me. But, life gets in the way of many things and time just seems to pass us by like a steady, unrelenting wind.

For many reasons, I have not been as involved in the voice over community as I had been. Some reasons, are due to external factors, and others due to the state of the industry and a perception that it is in decline for the moment. A decline that has seen my revenue drop 50% year over year since 2023.

Now, if I could only pick apart the reasons for that decline and work out what the root causes are. Well, that is what I will try to do today. Excuse me while I find my trusty Sherlock Homes Deer Stalker hat and gently inhale on my antique wood pipe. Tally ho!

Truth 1

I have not been doing the groundwork to market my voice over business.

Time is as precious as any resource in the world. It is finite and fickle. As with many voice actors, I have a day job that is required to take care of my day to day living costs. I could not consider giving that job up to pursue a full time voice career in the climate we are in. Mortgage, insurance, debt, living costs. The state of VO survey in 2024 showed that 48% of respondents classed themselves as full time. I will be watching to see the results for 2025 as I am sure that number will decrease.

If you don't put in the work, you can't expect to reap the rewards. Between 2019 and 2022 I put a huge amount of effort into marketing my business. At least 20-30 hours per week. And I saw the rewards build up gradually. Culminating in 2020 and 2021 when I was making $40K. 2024 was down to $10K.

Moral: Even with all of the external factors effecting the industry, it is quite clear that if you don't market your business, your workload will decrease.

Truth 2

Not being on the pay 2 plays has seriously reduced my income.

Between 2019 and 2023 the amount of P2P jobs I booked compared to overall bookings was an average of 43%. In 2023 I made the decision to drop the P2P's due to the way they were treating talent and the drive towards lower rates. Standing up for your beliefs is the morally correct thing to do, but when you rely heavily on those sites to book work, you inevitably lose money.

Moral: Do the right thing for your business. I was fortunate that I have other income to make up for the losses. Doing the right thing in my mind was more important. Anyone that criticizes you for working on the P2P sites has no right to do so. It is very easy for a seasoned talent who has built a great roster of clients to say that P2P's are the devil. They usually forget to tell you that it was with the help of the P2P's that got them to where they are now.

Truth 3

AI has made a significant difference to the amount of work available.

This is just a fact. Scroll on YouTube, TikTok or Facebook for 30 minutes and you will hear familiar AI voices over and over again. That work is gone for us humans.

Listen to eLearning courses that most big corporations provide these days. Most voices in these videos are now AI.

Corporate videos have also started to use AI.

Even audiobooks are starting to use AI.

These were the bread and butter jobs for the grafting voice actor. Yes, the commercial TV and radio jobs are where the big money is, but the small jobs paid the rent.

I am not here to tell you if it is right or wrong, good against evil or if AI will destroy the industry once and for all. That's for another time. We just need to accept that these jobs are rapidly disappearing and that is causing price pressures on the jobs that remain human.

Moral: It is very difficult to base a voiceover business on the "bread and butter" jobs now. If that was the majority of your work, you need to diversify somehow. That could be moving into games and animation or focusing on TV and radio.

And last, but no means least: Truth 4

Withdrawing from the VO community leaves you out of touch and out of mind.

At the height of my VO success, I spent at least 4-6 hours per week in Mastermind groups, webinars, chat rooms and socials. All related to VO. I regularly went to VO Atlanta and One Voice Dallas. I immersed myself in training and workshops. In short, I was all in.

I knew people. They knew me. There was accountability. I was at the heart of the industry. So much so, that it was starting to feel a little "culty" in truth!

Being so immersed has huge benefits though. When it consumes such a big part of your life, it is always top of mind. All my thought processes were geared around how I made my voice career more successful. It was like perpetual motion. You think, you do, you discuss. Rinse and repeat.

Writing blogs was easy. Coming up with marketing emails was easy. Working on the business was easy. All because it was all I ever thought about.

Cut to today...I spend ZERO hours in groups, socials and training. I still have my weekly accountability call but that has morphed from being VO focused to business and life focused. I am out of the loop. I don't think about VO every waking hour. I have become disconnected.

There is one advantage to looking from the outside in though. Especially when you know all of the players involved. You can spot those who are doing things for the good of the community versus those who are doing things for themselves. When you are so tight within the industry, you sometimes have blinkers on and do things or follow people "just because" rather than as a result of doing due diligence. You sometimes just get caught up in something and go with it because it feels right at the time.

Follow this sage advice from the one and only J. Michael Collins in one of his recent blogs:

"Opinions are like earholes (that's the phrase, right? 😁) Everyone has them, and they are all different. When it comes to your work, whether that's your performance, demos, marketing, whatever, don't treat a single opinion as holy writ. Take a little bit from each (useful) source before drawing conclusions. Unless the opinions are all the same, in which case you probably need to listen."

With the industry in decline, it seems more and more people are diversifying and moving some of their business into the coaching model. Many are doing so because they love to teach with the benefit that it generates income. But beware. Others are doing to it to sustain their lifestyle within this industry and don't have much to offer. With their revenue from actual VO work drying up, they need to make up for that financial loss.

Moral: You need to be "all in" within the industry of your choice. It keeps your finger on the pulse, your mind sharp and on topic, and drives you to be a success like those you are associated within the industry. And it has been said many times: Surround yourself with people better than you, because they will bring out your greatness.