How to Get Through Voice-Over's Feast Or Famine Business Cycles

In the voice-over business, it's often feast or famine. You can be incredibly busy with everyone wanting their projects voiced at the same time and/or studio booking requests for same day, same time, different studios - even different cities! Then, during a lull - nada.

Is there a way to deal with this wild swing?

PROMISE, BUT DELIVER

For the double bookings or projects that all come in on top of each other, well, you've just got to do the best you can with scheduling.

Promise everything, but make sure you can deliver it all - on time. That often means working long days in the studio, including weekends to make sure each client is taken care of with the same professionalism and quality of work.

I've just come out of a stretch like this over the past several weeks. I worked both Saturday and Sunday two weekends in a row and every week day from early morning until late night to deliver multiple e-learning courses for multiple clients - while still doing ISDN and phone patch sessions for new and established clients.

But, as you may well know, in this business, you've got to take the work when it's offered because you never know when that lull will come.

Given the economic news we've been getting over the past few weeks, that need has been driven home even harder

DON'T KEEP QUIET

How can you prepare for, avoid, or take advantage of the quieter times?

Well, sometimes, it's nice just to take a deep breath and relax a little or catch up on your bookkeeping.

That's also a good time to schedule all those personal "maintenance" things like medical and dental checkups, hair appointments - even a pedicure!

You also can catch up on all that marketing that's been waiting for your attention.

Mail out those CDs and postcards, or email the clients you haven't heard from in awhile. And make sure that you're listed with a variety of voice talent web sites and agents across the country.

UP TO YOU

Invariably, I find that when some are quiet, others are crazy busy! In short, use your time wisely every day whether you're booked solid or not, and don't put all of your eggs in one basket! (Wrong holiday, huh?)

Well, you know what I mean. No moping, wringing hands, or complaining that your agent or voice talent web site isn't keeping you busy.

In today's market, we have to find all the possible avenues of connecting with voice-over jobs that we can. And when we think we've maxed out, dig for some more!

Melanie Haynes has been a professional female voice talent and actress for 25 years. She’s a veteran of film, television, and theatre who has voiced thousands of radio and television commercials, corporate narrations, web narrations, podcasts, tutorials, on-hold and voice mail messages. Her vocal styles include: professional and authoritative, warm and caring, bright and upbeat, quirky and fun, sensual and sexy. Character voices and dialects are also in her repertoire. She also writes a very informative blog for voice actors.