You’ve seen the post. Maybe this exact one: someone in a super casual setting, a hook in bold caps that’s meant to capitalize on your emotions, and numbers designed to stop your scroll: $3,500. Zero experience. One commercial. 15 minutes.

The story underneath is almost ALWAYS some version of the same exact stupid freaking beat: “I was going theater, a stranger came up to me after my show and told me they loved my voice and offered me a gig on the spot. I had no idea what I was doing but 15 minutes later I made $3500!” Fifteen minutes in a booth. Life changed forever. Horseshit. And not because this didn’t happen.

It may very well have happened this exact way. I’m not saying it didn’t but this is only a QUARTER of the story. This person wasn’t a random person off the street. They were performing in a high-profile Shakespeare production. They had years of trained stage experience, professional representation in their acting career, and was already operating at a level most working actors never reach. THIS IS A BIG PART OF THE STORY. What actually happened to them is closer to “an established, classically trained actor got noticed by an industry professional” than “total novice falls into $3,500.” But you don’t hear it being told that way because it’s not sexy, doesn’t get picked up by the algos and doesn’t get the likes and clicks and shares that the other version gets.

And I’m not being nitpicky. THAT’S THE ENTIRE STORY, and it’s the part that got cut ON PURPOSE to coax actors into their world of “this is easy, let me show you…” Remember that old Mickey cartoon where that smokey hand was trying to lure him to that pie? You just KNOW that smokey hand was up to no damn good! But this type of content from established actors WORKS ON PURPOSE.

I’m not accusing anyone of lying ok? This is just how the algorithm rewards storytelling. “I got noticed for my talent after years of serious craft work” doesn’t stop a scroll. “I made thousands of dollars with ZERO experience” does. So the qualifying details, the ones that matter: the theater credentials, the years of training, the fact that this is an outlier even by outlier standards…get trimmed until what’s left is a fairy tale with a dollar sign on it. Like I said, I’m not saying stories like this never happen. Once in a while, someone with no VO background gets discovered and it works out. Love that for them!!! But “rare” and “reproducible” are not the same thing, and content like this is built to make you believe they are. And it’s not even unique! I see DOZENS of videos like this from “established” actors ALL THE TIME. And shock to NO ONE, they are all SELLING SHIT.

This isn’t just annoying marketing. It does real damage to people trying to build a career in this industry, in a few specific ways:

It resets expectations to something impossible. New voice actors already come in with wildly inflated ideas about how fast this business moves. Posts like this from working actors don’t correct that, they confirm it. Now someone’s benchmark for “normal” is a five-figure year from one lucky encounter, instead of the actual on-ramp: training, a demo, years of auditioning, slowly building relationships and a reel.

It quietly and almost entirely discredits the actual work. If the story is “I did nothing and got paid,” then everything the rest of us did, the classes, the coaching, the investing, the years of auditions that went nowhere, the demo we paid to get produced properly, it all starts to look OPTIONAL, or even like we were suckers for doing it the hard way. It wasn’t optional. It was the job.

It’s a funnel, not a confession. These posts almost always end with “follow for more” or a pitch into a course, a community, a paid program. That’s no accident. The incredible-luck story is the hook. What’s being sold afterward rarely delivers “$3,500ish for fifteen minutes of work,” because that was never a replicable outcome, it was ALWAYS a viral outlier wearing a costume. Again, not saying that this didn’t happen that way for this person. Just…COME ON.

It sets people up to undervalue themselves. Almost every single actor I speak to EVERY SINGLE DAY talks to me about some kind of imposter syndrome. We are all struggling with this business and if you are just entering it and believe the entry point to this business is “get discovered,” you’re not building the skills or the business practices that make you sustainable when the discovery doesn’t happen because for almost everyone, it won’t.

I see the damage firsthand. All the time.

I coach so many voice actors at varying levels and I want to tell you what this actually looks like on the other end of the feed. I have a student who is talented, works hard, shows up to every session. And regularly, they come to me feeling like garbage because they scrolled past someone’s “I just booked a national campaign” post, or watched a peer land a big role right as they started out, and it sent them spiraling. Not “I should try harder” spiraling. “Maybe I’m not good enough, maybe this isn’t meant for me, maybe I should quit” spiraling.

This is a person who has tried everything reasonable people tell them to try. And I’m sure you’ve done these things too, and maybe you’ve seen positive results or none at all—-Optimized their profiles. Took the notes. Put in the work with every CD, every coach, every guru... And still, watching other people’s highlight reels convinces them, over and over, that everyone else has figured out some secret they haven’t. But we are often ONLY shown the win, not the 268 auditions that went nowhere before it, not the years they put in before this felt easy, not whatever specific thing about their voice, connections, or timing lined up that has nothing to do with what you’re doing wrong. Comparing your entire, visible-only-to-you struggle to someone else’s single highlight is not a fair fight, and it was never supposed to be one.

If you’re a working voice actor and you feel this way on the regular, like you’re failing because your feed is full of other people’s wins, that feeling is real, and it is not evidence that you’re doing something wrong. It’s evidence that you’re being shown a curated slice of an industry that doesn’t broadcast its losses. And if you’re seeing these on LinkedIn by chance? UNFOLLOW ALL THE ACTORS THERE. That is NOT A SPACE for you to celebrate other people. It’s your space to work on your business connections and find decision makers.

Here’s what’s actually true

Opportunities like this outlier one exist. I’m not going to pretend the industry is a closed door with no lucky breaks in it. But they are RARE, they usually land on people who already had relevant training or stage presence, and they are NOT A STRATEGY. You simply can’t build a career plan around “hope a stranger with a commercial budget finds me after a show!! Hope someone stumbles across my TikTok and wants to give me $3500! Hope my website lands in the hands of a Netflix producer!”

The real path is straightforward: get trained, build materials that actually represent you, learn how to market yourself like a small business, and expect years, not minutes, before it pays off. That’s a worse hook. It’s not gonna help you go viral. But it’s also the truth.

If you’re building a voice acting career, don’t measure your progress against a post engineered to make you feel behind. It’s literally made to MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU NEED TO CATCH UP. Measure it against the actual, boring, reliable steps that get people working. That’s the ONLY version of this story that will hold up when the fifteen minutes are over.

LOTS ON THE CALENDAR FOR THE MONTH!

🎙 eLearning for Children and Adults VO Gym September 8th, 730pm EST
$35 Participate: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/27bqBvL4/checkout
$20 Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/87Fo3AxU/checkout

🎙 Animation Scenes VO Gym September 16th, 730pm EST
$35 Participate: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/gYhyeFD2/checkout
$20 Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/pDr2b7uM/checkout

🎙 Walla and Efforts VO Gym September 21st, 730pm EST
$35 Participate: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/cKvaULZp/checkout
$20 Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/cFed5e8N/checkout

🎙 Singing in Commercials VO Gym September 24th, 730pm EST
$35 Participate: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/2AyWc3i5/checkout
$20 Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/Gh4eksuD/checkout

I’ll aslso be teaching a Voice Matching class and Children’s Audio Description class. So stay tuned for those sign ups!!

My friends who don’t do eLearning and compliance work tell me they don’t because they feel like it’s the “bottom of the barrel”. That it’s just boring scripts, boring subject matter, boring pay. The kind of gig you take when nothing better’s on your plate. Which, I do sorta understand.

But this is an area of my business that really blossomed during the pandemic because every single company with more than a handful of employees needs this content, and needs it refreshed constantly, and so many actors believe that all this stuff is going to AI. In my experience…it’s not. OF COURSE SOME OF IT IS. But…I have several repeat clients, clients who have me on retainer, and new clients every quarter. The fact is, new hires need onboarding. Regulations change. Safety protocols get updated. HR policies get revised. Companies get bought and sold and new messaging has to be put into their shit. This isn’t a shrinking market chasing a handful of gigs, it’s one of the steadiest, most recurring revenue streams in the entire industry, and it’s sitting there mostly ignored because of all the reasons I already mentioned. Lucky for you, I’m teaching a class on Monday about Corporate Narration and Explainers and a class next month on this topic for both Children and Adults, so get in on it while you can!

So what’s the deal? What does it actually demand of you?

• Sustained neutral authority. You’re not selling anything and you’re not performing a character. You’re the calm, competent voice explaining something someone is legally or contractually required to sit through. Too flat and people tune out entirely. Too much personality and it feels inappropriate for the subject matter, especially anything touching harassment policy, safety procedure, or legal compliance.

• Extreme consistency across long sessions. A single eLearning module might run 20, 30, 40 minutes, sometimes longer when it’s a full course broken into modules. Your tone, pace, and energy on minute 35 need to sound identical to minute 2. This is a real stamina and technical skill, not just a “read it clearly” skill.

• Comfort with dense, unnatural language. Compliance scripts are often written by legal or HR departments, not writers. Sentences can be clunky, jargon-heavy, and full of terms you’ll need to pronounce with total confidence even if you’ve never said them out loud before. Hesitation reads as unprofessional here in a way it wouldn’t in a casual commercial read.

• Emotional restraint on serious subject matter. Some compliance content covers genuinely heavy topics, harassment, discrimination, safety incidents. The read has to feel serious and respectful without becoming somber or performative. That’s a narrower emotional lane than it sounds like on paper.

• CHARACTERS. I know. This is the one that always shocks my students or voiceover colleagues. I treat eLearning (like every other part of voiceover) like character work. I create character options for clients so they can decide what their tonality needs to be for their specific project.

The narrators who get rebooked for corporate eLearning work aren’t the most exciting voices in the room, they’re the most dependable ones. Clients aren’t looking for a standout performance, they’re looking for someone who delivers a clean, professional, consistent read on time, every time, without needing five rounds of direction to get there. Reliability is the actual audition here, more than talent in the traditional sense.

Practice copy. Try this cold, and pay attention to your consistency over the full read. Then do it again with another tone—-maybe something brighter. Then do it again and play with pacing. Then do it again and find another adjustment.

“As part of our ongoing commitment to workplace safety, all employees are required to complete this training annually. In the event of an emergency, remain calm and proceed to the nearest marked exit. Do not use elevators during an evacuation. Once outside, proceed to your department’s designated assembly point and remain there until a supervisor confirms it is safe to return. Failure to complete this training by the assigned deadline may result in restricted system access until certification is complete.”

Now do it one last time, but imagine you’re already 25 minutes into a much longer module when you get to this section. Did your energy shift at all?

Ask yourself after you record:

• Did I sound like a trustworthy source of information, or did I sound bored, or worse, condescending?

• Could I sustain this exact tone for another 20 minutes without it drifting?

• Did I stumble on any of the more clinical or technical language, and if so, would a client notice or would it read as confident regardless?

• Am I sacrificing clarity for other things like speed or smile or authority?

This vertical will never be “trendy”. Probably not even “cool” to most actors. I don’t know anyone building a personal brand around compliance narration. But it pays consistently, it recurs constantly, and almost nobody’s fighting you for it, which by now should sound like a familiar theme across this whole series. Because that was my entire point this week.

So that’s the wrap on “5 Verticals You’re Sleeping On.” If you’ve made it through all five, you’ve got a starting map of work that’s steady, underexplored, and genuinely achievable.

Most of my classes for September are already live so please go have a look and let me know how I can help.

Book a free 15-minute consult call

LOTS ON THE CALENDAR NEXT MONTH!!

🎙 eLearning for Children and Adults VO Gym September 8th, 730pm EST
$35 Participate: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/27bqBvL4/checkout
$20 Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/87Fo3AxU/checkout

🎙 Animation Scenes VO Gym September 16th, 730pm EST
$35 Participate: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/gYhyeFD2/checkout
$20 Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/pDr2b7uM/checkout

🎙 Walla and Efforts VO Gym September 21st, 730pm EST
$35 Participate: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/cKvaULZp/checkout
$20 Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/cFed5e8N/checkout

🎙 Singing in Commercials VO Gym September 24th, 730pm EST
$35 Participate: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/2AyWc3i5/checkout
$20 Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/Gh4eksuD/checkout

I’ll aslso be teaching a Voice Matching class and Children’s Audio Description class. So stay tuned for those sign ups!!

Most people think t’s just a friendly welcome message. You add a lil’ smile in your voice, read the amenities, done in five minutes. However, hotel and hospitality narration is a masterclass in sustained, specific warmth without a single ounce of sales pressure behind it. This isn’t a commercial. Nobody’s trying to convince the guest to buy anything, they’ve already checked in.

Hospitality/wayfinding voiceover covers the voice work that guides people through physical spaces they're not familiar with, hotels, airports, resorts, cruise ships, and similar environments. It includes in-room welcome messages and amenity information, but also wayfinding elements like elevator announcements, lobby directions, and signage-paired audio that helps guests find their way from point A to point B without needing to ask a single staff member. The through-line across all of it is calm, clear, unhurried guidance, the voice isn't selling anything, it's simply making sure someone feels oriented and taken care of in an unfamiliar place.

Here’s what the work really demands:

• Genuine hospitality energy, not performance energy. The second you sound like you’re “doing a voice” instead of actually welcoming someone, the illusion breaks. This vertical punishes over-acting harder than almost any other. You can’t fake the warmth or put on the friendliness. You actually have to feel it.

• Consistency across a long list of small, disconnected instructions. One script might cover the welcome message, the WiFi password, the in-room dining menu, the spa hours, and the checkout reminder, all needing to sound like the same warm, competent person, not five separate reads stitched together.

• Brand-specific warmth. A boutique property in Tulum and a business-traveler chain hotel in a major airport corridor should not sound like the same voice giving the same welcome. One leans relaxed and personal, the other leans efficient and polished.

• Comfort with quiet, unhurried pacing. Unlike IVR, where efficiency is the goal, hotel narration can breathe. The mistake most actors make is rushing it like customer service copy instead of letting it feel like someone genuinely glad you arrived.

• Regional-specific voices. A lot of hotels LOVE to have actors give a good solid take in the city’s natural accent. Is the hotel in NoLa? Brush up on your Princess and the Frog. What about Boston? Go watch The Departed. Giving a little extra authenticity to the vibe goes a long way.

Actors who get rebooked for hospitality and wayfinding work sound like they’d actually want to work at the front desk of that hotel. The ones who don’t get rebooked sound like they’re reading a script about a hotel they’ve never been curious about. Specificity and warmth are what separate “generic welcome voice” from someone a brand wants representing their entire guest experience.

Practice copy: try this cold, and notice your pacing instinct:

“Welcome, and thank you for choosing to stay with us. Your room is equipped with complimentary high-speed WiFi, the network name and password are listed on the card beside your television. Our rooftop pool is open daily from 7 AM to 10 PM, and our concierge is available around the clock should you need anything at all during your stay. Ready for room service? We have 24/7 menus and beside service. We hope you enjoy every moment here with us.”

Now read it again, twice, once imagining a boutique wellness resort, once imagining a business hotel near a downtown convention center. Notice how much of what changes isn’t the words, it’s the pace and the warmth underneath them.

Ask yourself after you record:

• Did I sound like I was welcoming a specific kind of guest, or did I sound like generic hospitality copy?

• Did my pacing feel unhurried, or did it drift toward customer-service efficiency?

• Would I want to stay at this hotel based on how I just sounded?

This vertical won’t make headlines. But it’s steady, it’s specific, and almost nobody’s building a demo around it, which means almost nobody’s competing with you for it either. Again, SO MANY ACTORS I KNOW SAY ‘NO’ TO THIS WORK!

Next up and last one for the week: eLearning and compliance training, the absolute least glamorous vertical in the entire industry, and why it might also be one of the most dependable paychecks you’re overlooking.

A lot of people, I think, assume that Audio Description (AD) is just narrating what’s happening on screen for someone who can’t see it. Read the visuals out loud and then you’re done. But AD isn’t “narration”. It’s performance (and sometimes even writing) under some of the tightest constraints in voiceover, constraints most actors have never had to work inside before and don’t understand right out of the gate.

Every word of AD has to fit inside a gap. Not a gap you choose, a gap the film or show already left for you, the natural pause between lines of dialogue. If the description doesn’t fit, it gets cut, reworded, or the pacing gets compromised, and none of that is your call to fix live. You’re not adjusting your read to sound natural; you’re adjusting to sound accurate and complete inside a window of time that was decided before you ever sat down at the mic. You have to walk the line of “unbiased,” meaning, it’s not your responsibility to project how you think a character is feeling. If the AD line is “his face was furrowed”, it’s not your job to influence that line with why YOU think his face is furrowed, but to let the listener come to their own conclusions as to why. The actor’s job on screen is to guide the listner to that…not yours.

And like I said before, you’re not just describing action, you’re making constant, split-second judgment calls about what matters. A character enters a room, sure, but do you have time to say they’re crying? Do you have time to describe the state of the room around them? AD writers and narrators are constantly triaging: what’s essential to understanding this scene, and what has to be sacrificed because the gap ran out.

I got started in AD last year with children’s media and after that first gig, it snowballed into several others beyond the children’s space and I have come to really appreciate it. Here’s what it actually demands:

• Neutral, unbiased delivery. Your job is to describe, NOT to interpret or editorialize. I know this becomes tricky especially when there are really exciting or dramatic things happening or if there are characters in heated discussions. If you let your performance color how “sad” or “tense” a moment is, you’re making a choice for the listener that isn’t yours to make. That’s a genuinely hard habit to build if you’ve spent years training to bring emotion into everything you read.

• Extreme pacing discipline. You have to speak clearly and completely within a fixed window, every time, with no room to speed up sloppily or trail off. This isn’t the flexible pacing of commercial or narration work, it’s closer to the precision demanded by IVR, but with far more content to fit into far less forgiving space. In AD notes from a producer, you’ll often see the request to say the line as “Brisk” or “Very Brisk” and you have to understand tha tin context.

Read more

Let’s start with the definition of “walla”. Something that really tickles the heck outta me is that the word “walla” doesn’t come from a real word at all: it’s onomatopoeia! (If you know me or have taken class with me you know how much I freaking LOVE onomatopoeia!) It’s believed that it originated in the early days of radio, when it was discovered that having several people repeat the sound “walla” in the background was sufficient to mimic the indistinct chatter of a crowd. Essentially, someone found that a group of people saying “walla, walla, walla” over and over sounded, at a distance, like real overlapping conversation, and the technique (and its name) stuck. However, ANNOYINGLY, it’s not universal. “Rhubarb” is used instead in the UK, “gur-gur” in Russia, and “gaya gaya” in Japan; every culture apparently found its own nonsense word that sounds like the shape of a crowd talking in that language. At it’s core, walla is simply the background noise in film and television.

Here’s what a lot of people think when I tell them that I do looping/walla/ADR (which are ALL DIFFERENT THING BTW and you can catch up on those differences here): Background crowd noise, restaurant chatter, party ambiance, that’s not real acting, right? Just mumble something and move on.

The walla skill isn’t performance in the traditional sense, it’s creating texture, specificity, and life without ever pulling focus from the actual dialogue happening in front of it. There’s LOTSA rules when it comes to doing looping and walla for specific projects and we won’t get into that here. But what I wanna explore with you is what it actually demands:

• IMPROV. You HAVE to be a good improviser to be able to keep up. Note, THIS DOES NOT MEAN “BEING FUNNY”. It means thinking logically, QUICKLY, and contextually.

• Group work: most walla is recorded live with other actors, reacting and building off each other in real time. And yes, I do a lot of this in my own studio remotely.

• Physical stamina, sustained “conversation” energy for long stretches without actual scripted lines to lean on.

• Range of characters within seconds, you might be a bar patron, then a protester, then a party guest, all in the same session.

• Restraint!!! The second you get too specific or too loud, you break the illusion and pull the ear away from the scene

New walla actors either go too big (performing instead of existing) or too quiet (checked out, filling space instead of populating a world). The ones who get called back understand they’re building atmosphere, not delivering lines. You can hear the difference between someone acting like they’re at a party and someone who sounds like they forgot the mic was on.

PRACTICE THIS: try this with a friend or solo, layering your own “conversation” on top of a second take. Imagine the scene you’re working on is set in the modern day at a restaurant.

“So then she says, no way that actually happened, and I’m like, I swear on my life, and he’s just standing there like…”
“My milkshake is so yummy, wanna try? Don’t worry I didn’t use the straw…”
“Wait, wait, back up, who told you this? Ooh, let’s order fries…”
“Can I use that fork? Maybe we should ask for a knife too…”
“I’m kinda concerned that the hamburger isn’t grass-fed, but what can you do…”
“Uh, okay but seriously, you would not believe what happened next, it was insane…”

Record it twice: once trying to sound like a specific, believable person having a real conversation, and once layered under a second track of yourself doing an entirely different “conversation.” Listen back. Can you make out actual words in the layered version, or does it just read as texture?

Ask yourself after you record:

• If I heard this in a movie, would it pull my attention from the main scene, or would it disappear into the world?

• Did I create a specific character, or just noise?

• Could I sustain this energy for 20 minutes straight in a room with 5 other actors?

Nobody’s chasing walla work for the glory. But it’s steady, it’s collaborative, and it teaches a skill a lot of “main character” actors never bother to develop: how to be excellent at not being the point.

Next up: what Audio Description actually requires, and why it’s one of the most technically demanding, least understood verticals in the industry.

This week on my Substack I am doing a 5-day challenge of verticals you may not really be looking into or might not even realize they exist. We’re gonna have a nice little chat about it and I’ll give you some copy to practice. So let’s start with IVR.

So what is it? IVR, Interactive Voice Response, is basically every automated phone system you've ever interacted with. It's the voice that greets you when you call your bank, your doctor's office, your cable company, the voice that says "press 1 for billing". It's on-hold messaging, phone trees, auto-attendants, all of it. You've heard hundreds of these voices in your life and could probably name maybe one of them, and that's exactly why this work is so steady. Nobody's trying to go viral doing it, which means way less competition than you'd think for work that pays consistently and books repeatedly. (And Telephony encompasses the messaging that you’ll hear when you call an office that’s closed or has other types of announcements like “Thank you for calling Chase. Our offices are closed today for the holiday. We appreciate your business and hope you enjoy the day. We’ll see you on Monday the 11th during normal office hours.” Often IVR and Telephony are conflated and combined as one thing when they’re actually separate.)

A lot of people would say that IVR is “easy money,” a warm-up gig, something you knock out before your “real” audition of the day. Because ya just read the words, right? Give a lil smile, have a quick laugh, and bang those liners out. But listen to me when I tell you that IVR is one of the least forgiving verticals for pacing and tone. You’re not performing for a person, you’re performing for a system, and the system doesn’t care that you sounded great, it cares that the caller understood the option and didn’t hang up in frustration. Every wasted breath, every unnecessary lift at the end of a phrase, every ounce that doesn’t serve clarity all work against you here. I never call anything in this industry “easy” but IVR isn’t—-you haveta understand the space before you just bang it out.

What it actually demands:

• Consistency across dozens (sometimes hundreds) of short lines recorded in one sitting, matching tone and pace take after take. (I often do 4-5 takes of one line for final delivery, all recorded on SEPARATE FILES)

• Warmth without waste! You’re friendly, but you’re not chatting with the gals over wine at 2pm on a Tuesday.

• Precision on numbers, menu options, and technical terms, because these get parsed by call systems and misreads cost real money to fix.

• The ability to sound the same on line 4 as you do on line 140, three hours later.

The actors who get rebooked for IVR aren’t the ones with the prettiest voice. They’re the ones whose fourth take sounds exactly as fresh as their first. If your energy visibly drops or your pacing drifts as you go, that’s the gap.

Read this, out loud, RIGHT NOW, cold:

“Thank you for calling. Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed. For billing, press 1. For technical support, press 2. For questions regarding what’s going on in the world, press 3. To speak with a representative, press 0 at any time. Your call is important to us and will be answered in the order it was received. We’re currently experiencing a high volume of calls at this time. Please continue to hold. Visit www.yourfavoriteactor.com to read through our FAQ’s.”

Now do it again, five more times, back to back, no break. Listen to takes 1 and 6 side by side. Same energy? Same pace? Same warmth? If not, that’s exactly the muscle this vertical is testing.

Ask yourself after you record:

• Did my pacing stay consistent, or did I speed up as I got comfortable?

• Would a caller in a hurry find this clear, or would they need to replay it?

• Did I sound like a person, or a system pretending to be a person? (Try to find the in between)

This isn’t the sexiest vertical. It’s also not going anywhere, and it’s not oversaturated with actors chasing it because most of us say ‘no’ to it. And yes. OF COURSE some of this work is going to AI. Some of every piece of voiceover work is going to AI. But you CANNOT let that stop you from pursuing it or else…there’s gonna be nothing left for us. You have to be better than it. Sometimes the best move is the one nobody’s fighting you for.

Now here’s the rest of your homework from this vertical. Practice these two styles, one ‘big box’ store (think Target, Walmart, etc) and 1 medical office (law, dentist, spa, etc). Two different tonalities and styles. Let’s go:

Big Box Retail IVR

1. “Thank you for calling our store! For store hours and locations, press 1. For an existing order, press 2. To speak with a team member, press 3.”

2. “Your call is important to us. All representatives are currently assisting other customers. Your estimated wait time is 4 minutes.”

3. “For returns and exchanges, press 4. For price match inquiries, press 5. For our current weekly sales and promotions, press 6.”

4. “To check the status of your online order, please have your order number ready and press *1 now.”

5. “Our Electronics department is available Monday through Saturday, 9 AM to 9 PM, and Sunday, 10 AM to 6 PM. To be transferred, press 9.”

6. “We’re sorry, that extension is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone, or press 0 to return to the main menu.”

Medical Office IVR

1. “Thank you for calling. If this is a medical emergency, please hang up and dial 911 immediately.”

2. “To schedule, reschedule, or cancel an appointment, press 1. For prescription refill requests, press 2. To speak with our billing department, press 3.”

3. “Our office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM. If you’re calling after hours with an urgent concern, please press 9 to reach our on call provider.”

4. “For lab and test results, press 6. Please note results may take 3 to 5 business days to be reviewed by your provider.”

5. “To verify your insurance coverage or update your information on file, press *9. Please have your insurance card available.”

6. “Your call is being recorded for quality assurance. All representatives are currently helping other patients. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order it was received.”

Have fun and lemme hear what you’re working on! You can always email me your files at astoriaredheadvo@gmail.com or post ‘em with hashtag #VoHomeworkClub.

My class tomorrow is all about In-Store Announcements and Brand Radio and I have one next week all about Corporate Narration and Explainers. Hope to see ya there!

Broken FUCKING links.

And I’m not even talking about occasionally. SEVEN OUT OF TEN WEBSITES HAVE AT LEAST ONE. Across websites that otherwise look polished, have professional headshots, list impressive credits, and are clearly maintained by people who care about their careers and which cost a freakin’ MINT, there are BROKEN LINKS!!!!! A link to a Twitter account that leads nowhere. A YouTube channel that redirects to a deleted page. A Casting Call Club profile that 404s. A social media icon that just opens the homepage of the platform with no destination. WHAT THE HECK PEOPLE?!

You’ve seen me talk about this before. In this post. In this one. And who could forget this one.

Here is what that broken link is actually communicating to the person who clicked it: “I haven’t checked this recently. I set it up and moved on. Maybe I didn’t even set it up and it’s just the template. The details that are literally about me and are meant to help you understand me better as an actor, don’t matter that much to me and also shouldn’t matter to you.”

But if you’re an actor, especially an actor in voiceover, you KNOW the details are the entire pitch. A casting director who hires you is trusting you to deliver a file at the right spec, to the right destination, on time, with the right labeling, the right format, and the right quality, almost ALWAYS without supervision and often without a second chance. Every signal you send before they hire you is evidence of what kind of partner you will be when they do.

A broken link is a signal. It’s a small one. But signals compound.

Go click every link on your website RIGHT NOW. Every single one. If it doesn’t go exactly where it is supposed to go, fix it today. Not this week. Today. It takes four minutes and it is the single fastest credibility repair available to you. And speaking of links, if you have them in your email signature, MAKE SURE THEY ARE 1) clickable 2) go to the right place and 3) aren’t egregious. We don’t need videos, links, photos. We need SIMPLICITY and SPECIFICITY.

Oh and while we’re here, I wanna talk about the crowdfund.

Now look, I know that voiceover is expensive as hell. I have spent…a LOT over the last 20 years. As I should! You have to invest if you expect ANY sort of ROI. I get that not everyone can do that at scale when they need to/want to but I recently came across a voice actor’s website that included a link to a crowdfund for their pay to play membership.

Again, I want to be careful here because I understand that financial barriers in this industry are real and I do not want to shame anyone for having them. I have had them. I try not to let them happen for people who are genuinely interested and want to succeed here. But I do want to name why this particular approach creates a problem that the actor may not have considered.

Your website is a business tool. Every element of it communicates something about how you operate professionally. A crowdfund link communicates that you are asking a potential client, someone who came to your site to evaluate whether to hire you, to fund the infrastructure of your business before they have received anything in return. The relationship that action creates is backwards. The client’s job is to pay you for your work, not to subsidize your access to the market before the work exists. Even if the crowdfund is completely separate from your professional operation in your own mind, placing it on your website collapses that separation entirely. I know it’s probably not been considered in this way which is why if you are gonna do some type of crowdfund for your business, it may be wise NOT to have a link on your website.

If you need help funding a pay to play membership or a demo or studio equipment, there are paths for that: coaching scholarships, industry grants, community support, and payment plans with vendors. But a link on your professional website asking visitors to contribute is asking the wrong people at the wrong moment, and it will cost you more than the membership price in lost credibility.

Now, lastly. A word on coaches.

This week started off spicy as I called out some industry professionals for their lack of…well, professionalism. But there is a category of voiceover content that has been bothering me for a while and I finally have the language for it.

Fake help.

Here is what fake help looks like: an Instagram carousel with the title USE THESE JOB TITLES TO FIND CLIENTS ON LINKEDIN, followed by eight slides of job titles. Audio Producer. Creative Director. Instructional Designer. Content Manager. Marketing Manager. Etc.

And then it ends.

No instruction on what to actually do except “Network!”. There’s ZERO guidance on what to say once you find someone. No context for which titles apply to which niches or which company sizes or which industries. No next step of any kind. Just: here are some words. Good luck. And I understand why this content gets made. It is easy to produce, it looks useful, it gets saves and shares because people think they are getting something they can act on, and it builds a following for the coach without requiring them to give anything of real value.

But what is ACTUALLY does is creates the feeling of progress without the mechanics of progress. An actor saves the carousel, tells themselves they now know what to do, and then sits down to search LinkedIn with no idea what to type in the search bar, no idea how to filter results, no idea what to write in the message that follows, and no idea why every single thing they try isn’t working. And then they feel like they are failing at something that was presented as simple. I talk to actors about this almost DAILY. They say something like, “I think I know what to do but when it comes time to do it, I’m stuck.” And it’s partly because they’ve seen things like this from “prominent” people in this space who are offering fake help.

And look, it CAN be helpful, it absolutely has the potential to be because the job titles are not the thing. The job titles are one ingredient in a system that requires a target, a method, a message, a follow-up sequence, and an understanding of why any of it works. Handing someone an ingredient list and calling it a recipe is not help. It is the appearance of help. Real help is harder to make. It is less shareable. It does not fit in eight slides. But it is the thing that actually moves careers and it’s what you get when you actually invest in yourself. Be skeptical of content that makes you feel informed without making you more capable. Those are different things.

ANYWHO.

Go check your websites. Vet your industry professionals. Hydrate.

Here’s roughly what they sent:

Hi [Agent],

I hope you’re doing well! Your agency came highly recommended, so I wanted to reach out and introduce myself. I’m a voice talent seeking commercial representation, and I’d be grateful for the opportunity to be considered. I’ve attached my commercial demo and headshot for your review.

I have a home studio with broadcast-quality audio and am Source-Connect ready for remote or live-directed sessions. I appreciate the opportunity to be considered and look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,
Person you’ll forget in 2 seconds

Polite. Professional-sounding. Grammatically fine. And it does pretty much zippo-potomous to actually get the needle moving.

Here’s the feedback I sent back, and the bigger lesson underneath it.

“Highly recommended” By whom, exactly?

If you’re going to say an agency came highly recommended, that sentence needs a second half. Without backing it up, it just sounds frilly and vague. “Recommended by a fellow actor who just booked a national spot through you” or “recommended by someone I met at a casting workshop who spoke highly of how you advocate for your roster” does actual work. It tells the agent something true and specific about their own reputation, and it tells them you didn’t just Google “voiceover agencies near me” and start firing off form letters.

Vague credibility isn’t credibility. It’s filler wearing a pretty compliment necklace.

Read more

Now this student has come to me for classes and advice and I have been telling him to continue to coach and learn. But now, with his coach telling him that he still wasn’t ready (after a long time of coaching together), I had a choice to make. Keep offering my services and gentle encouragement toward a door that probably wasn’t going to open. Or tell him the truth and actually help him find a door that would.

I chose the truth. And I didn’t do it to crush him. I did it to prove to him that just because one specific space in voiceover MIGHT not be for him, it doesn’t mean there aren’t others. So here’s how I had to think of it:

Redirection is NOT rejection

The instinct when you have to deliver this kind of feedback is to soften it into vagueness. “Keep at it, you’ll get there.” “Everyone’s journey is different.” That’s not kindness, that’s COWARDICE. And when cowardice is wearing kindness as a costume, it becomes a bigger problem for everyone. This wastes someone’s time and money, gives them false hope, and in the same vein, it protects you, the coach, more than it protects them.

Real kindness sounds specific. It names exactly what isn’t working, and just as importantly, it names somewhere that specific skill set actually does work.

So when we actually had this conversation, I didn’t lead with “commercial VO isn’t for you.” I led with what I’d genuinely observed: a voice and read style that had real strengths, just not the strengths this particular niche rewards. Then I named three lanes where those exact same strengths become assets instead of liabilities. SPECIFIC to him and not just where “the money is” or where “low hanging fruit” is. Different registers, different demands, and a much better match for what he actually brought to the mic.

The message wasn’t “give up.” And it also wasn’t “just keep going”. It was “you’ve been knocking on the wrong door with the right set of keys.”

This is what every student who is coaching needs and deserves. If you’ve been working with a coach for a long period of time, they should know you. They should know your skill level, your marketability, and should be able to project, at some level, your ability to succeed in the lane you’re coaching in. If they don’t or can’t name those things specifically, then…well…I think you know what I’m gonna say.

Boundaries matter, too

Alongside the redirection, I also had to be honest that ongoing free coaching wasn’t something I could keep offering. That’s not punishment. That’s just reality. He’d been putting in free 15-minute consults again and again which is something I am really glad to offer but I hadn’t put my boundaries on it. This wasn’t HIS issue, it was mine and it was HARD FOR ME to face it because I want to walk the line of champion for the actor without compromising myself. For a people pleaser like myself, this is challenging. Free feedback indefinitely, especially once it’s clear the current path isn’t working, becomes an unsustainable pattern that helps no one, ESPECIALLY the student who deserves a coach who’s actually invested in the outcome, not just being nice on autopilot.

Naming that boundary clearly, in the same conversation as the redirection, actually makes the redirection land better. It signals this isn’t a dismissal. It’s a real assessment from someone who cares enough to tell the truth and structure the relationship honestly going forward. It’s a win freaking win for BOTH of us, even though it’s “hard”.

I think about integrity in coaching the same way I think about integrity in this industry generally. If I’ll tell you what you want to hear because it’s easier, you can’t actually trust anything I tell you, including the compliments. The value of “you’re ready for this” only means something if I’m also willing to say “you’re not, and here’s why.” But it’s the “why” part that a lot of coaches fuck up because they want to keep their students. I get it. But EVERY actor deserves a coach who will do that. Not brutally. I don’t believe in “brutal honesty”. I believe in SPECIFIC honesty with a next step already in hand when the hard news lands.

If you’re an actor who’s been given vague, “hedge-everything” feedback for a long time, it might be worth asking your coach directly: what’s actually not working, and what would work better? You might be surprised how much clearer things get when someone finally answers honestly. You can’t keep throwing money at a coach who is constantly protecting themselves from the discomfort of a direct assessment. That’s the whole reason you get coaching in the first place! If you suspect you’ve been getting this type of feedback for a while, here’s how to ask for something more useful:

Ask the direct question, not the fishing question. Instead of “how am I doing,” try “what’s the one thing that’s actually holding me back right now?” The first question invites a hedge. The second one requires an answer.

Tell your coach you can handle it. Sometimes coaches soften feedback because they’re guessing at how fragile you are, not because the feedback itself is unclear. Saying plainly, “I’d rather hear the hard version than the nice version,” gives them permission to actually say it.

Ask what vertical fits, not just what’s wrong. If something isn’t working, the most useful follow up isn’t “how do I fix this,” it’s “given what you’re seeing, where do you think this would actually work.” A good coach can often see a better fit lane before you can, especially if you’re too attached to the one you originally wanted. This is hard though because so many actors put their heart in something they really want instead of things they’re actually marketable in.

Notice if the feedback ever changes. If you’ve heard “keep at it, you’re improving” for months without anything getting more specific, that’s worth naming out loud. A coach who respects you will welcome that question. One who gets defensive about it is telling you something, too.

Remember redirection isn’t a verdict on your talent. A coach steering you away from one vertical is not the same as a coach saying you shouldn’t be doing this at all. Conflating the two is usually what makes actors avoid asking for honesty in the first place.

Hang in there, moonbeams.

ON THE CALENDAR THIS MONTH:

🎙TOMORROW Rock your Commercial Voiceover Auditions: Wednesday August 5, 730pm EST
Participation: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/2g3LLyme/checkout
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/vFkpx4Lz/checkout

🎙Learning Audio Description for TV: Tuesday August 11, 730pm EST
Participation: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/TPb4DHP3/checkout
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/q47aKCC6/checkout

🎙Interactive Media: Museum Tours and Hotel Guides: Wednesday August 17, 730pm EST
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/6f3DKFj2/checkout

🎙In Store Announcements and Brand Radio: Tuesday August 25, 730pm EST
Participation: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/2paQ5Eax/checkout
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/YwkTjCsy/checkout

🎙Corporate Narration and Explainers: Monday August 31, 730pm EST
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/mGgz8WXH/checkout

We often treat our “past life” as if it didn’t lead us to exactly where we are now. Your life experience isn’t insignificant because it doesn’t revolve around the entertainment industry. It might actually serve you REALLY well, but we ignore it because it “doesn’t align” or even, sometimes, we feel embarrassed by it.

That mindset is, forgive my french, horse patooty.

So let’s stop that and make two lists:

Grab a piece of paper, because we are going analog. Now, I know some of you who’ve been with me for a while have done this already. But it’s a good idea to revisit this practice once a quarter. Why? BECAUSE YOU’RE AN EVOLVING HUMAN! RIGHT? Things shift! You learn! You grow! These lists SHOULD NOT be static.

So here we go, put a line down the center of your paper. On one side write “ALL THE THINGS I KNOW HOW TO DO AS A HUMAN” and on the other side write “ALL THE THINGS I KNOW HOW TO DO AS AN ACTOR”.

List One: Human Skills. Everything you know how to do that has nothing to do with acting. Past careers. Certifications. Hobbies you’d never think to put on a demo site. The stuff you’d only mention at a dinner party, not a casting call. Things you know absurdly a lot about. Even affinities to a particular subject.

List Two: Actor Skills. Your actual actory things. Accents, original characters, improv, stage work, singing, whatever you bring specifically to a booth or a set.

Most people can build List Two pretty fast. It’s List One that trips everybody up, because we’ve been trained to think it doesn’t belong on the same page as our acting resume. I’ve watched students turn in lists that include ESL certification, wine tasting, computer repair, martial arts, hearing loss advocacy, gardening, poker dealing, twenty years of teaching, a decade of DMing D&D campaigns. Every single time, somebody says some version of “but this doesn’t really count, right?”

It counts. It’s the whole point. And I have helped them shape direct marketing GOLD out of these lists.

This isn’t just journaling time

I’m gonna say something that may piss a few people off: a generic, talented voice is a commodity. There are thousands of us. Clear diction and good range get you in the room, sure, but they don’t get you remembered. What gets you remembered is symmetry. The place where your List One and List Two overlap in a way almost nobody else’s does.

A martial artist who also does character voices isn’t just an actor anymore. They’re the person a fight-heavy video game studio wants consulting AND voicing, because they understand the terminology and the choreography language, not just the performance.

A former nurse who also voices patient education content isn’t reading a script cold. They’re the person a hospital system trusts to get the terminology exactly right, because they’ve lived it.

A hard-of-hearing advocate who also does audio description work isn’t just checking an accessibility box. They’re bringing standards knowledge that generic AD scripts usually miss.

A person who spent years in the courtroom as a steno isn’t just good at typing, they bring accuracy to a loop group on a box-office film about the law.

That’s symmetry. It’s the intersection, not either list on its own.

Just ask yourself: Would an aviation school prefer an actor who sounds “nice” or an actor who sounds nice and has actually sat behind the cockpit? The actor with the life experience in the space they’re marketing in has an advantage.

How to actually find it

Once you’ve got your two lists, don’t just stare at them. I know this part is tempting. But start to cross-reference, out loud if you have to.

For every item on List One, ask:

• Who already pays for training/education/marketing content in this world? (Companies, certifying bodies, platforms, nonprofits all commission this constantly, and most of it needs a human voice.)

• Is there a documentary, eLearning module, or explainer genre already built around this topic?

• What companies align with my expertise that I can build outreach for?

• Could I be the SCRIPT CONSULTANT as well as the voice, not just the talent for hire?

• Is there a version of my own content (Substack, TikTok, YouTube) where this expertise plus my VO voice makes for something nobody else can make?

You will not find symmetry for every single item. That’s fine. That’s not the point. You’re looking for two or three genuine overlaps, not twelve.

What this looks like in practice

I ran this exercise recently with an actor whose List One included ESL certification and years of teaching, with a List Two full of Disney-adjacent character work and ASL. The overlap was obvious once we said it out loud: children’s education VO, with actual credibility behind the “understands how kids learn language” pitch. Not just a nice voice reading a script. A person who has done the underlying work.

I ran it with another actor limited by disability income guidelines who had a radio background and stand-up comedy credits. The overlap wasn’t “go wide and hope for a big break.” It was “go deep in small-to-mid market radio imaging and local agency work,” a lane sized correctly to both his skill set and his actual constraints.

Neither of these people needed a personality transplant or a brand-new skill. They needed to actually look at what they already had, side by side, and stop treating half of it as irrelevant.

Your homework, your lists

Make the two lists. Actually write them down, don’t just think about it. Then find the overlap. Not the whole list, just the two or three intersections that feel true and nobody else quite has.

That’s your actual pitch.

Tell me what’s on your List One. I read every comment and email, and I promise you have more symmetry than you think you do.

I call it the “Dream Agent Letter”. (I’m working on the name, ok?)

Here’s what you do: Write a thank you letter to the agent you most want to represent you. Not a pitch. Not an email. A thank you letter, like the deal is already done. You’ve been signed for a while now. Things are going well. You’re genuinely grateful, and you’re telling them why. You’re reminding them why they chose you and you chose them. You’re grateful for how they shaped your career.

Sounds simple. It is not simple. It’s actually one of the hardest things I ask people to do, because most actors have spent years being told to sound professional, polished, and a little bit invisible, and a little bit personal in their outreach. This exercise asks for the opposite. It asks for honesty, specificity, and actual feeling.

And that’s exactly the point.

So why fantasy first? Because when people sit down to write a real pitch email, they freeze. They second guess every sentence. They start to judge themselves harshly. Start to compare to other actors. They write something generic because generic feels safe. Nobody gets excited reading a generic pitch, including the agent on the other end of it.

But when you tell someone to write a thank you note for something that hasn’t happened yet, something strange and cool happens. They stop performing professionalism and they start writing the truth. They say things like “you were the only one who believed in me” or “I loved that you introduced me to people, not just auditions.” They get specific about moments, conferences, panels, comments an agent made that stuck with them. That specificity is gold. It’s also usually buried under a lot of stuff that has no business being in an actual pitch, like inside jokes about the open bar or a fictional award they haven’t won yet. Or agent gossip…Which is fine. That’s what the fantasy version is for. Now we go mining.

The core four

(Usually when I say this I’m thinking about Jeter, ARod, Jorge, and Andy) But this actual core four are the 4 things I think the letter actually needs. Once the letter is written, we go through it together and pull out exactly those 4 things. Everything else gets cut, no matter how charming it is on the page.

Who they are. Not a resume dump. A clear, specific sentence about who this actor is right now, today, with real credits and a real niche. Not a wishlist, not a fantasy career. The truth, stated with confidence. If you say you’re a commercial actor, follow that up with a credit. One credit per vertical, I’d say.

Why them, and why now. This is usually the best part of the fantasy letter, because people get specific when they’re not trying to sound impressive. They’ll mention the exact thing an agent said on a panel, the specific quality they admire, the moment that made them think “that’s who I want in my corner.” That specificity is what separates a real pitch from a form letter. Generic flattery gets deleted. A precise, earned observation gets read twice.

Why they’re a good fit for each other. Not just why the actor wants the agent. Why the actor believes they’d actually be a good client for that agent’s roster, style, or philosophy. This is the part that shows self awareness, and agents notice self awareness immediately because so few actors have it.

A clear call to action. This is the one people forget every single time, fantasy letter or not. The dream version doesn’t need one, because the relationship already exists in the fiction. But a real pitch without an ask just sits there. Reel attached, credits listed, and then nothing. No next step. We fix that. Every real pitch needs one clear, simple thing the agent can do next.

Then we examine what gets cut, and why it matters. The parts that always get cut are the parts that reveal the fantasy for what it is. Those fictional awards. The goss. Phrases like “like we talked about,” which assume a relationship history that doesn’t exist yet. Cutting those isn’t about killing the joy of the exercise. It’s about teaching the difference between emotional honesty, which is useful, and premature familiarity, which reads as unprofessional or even a little strange to someone who has never met you.

So here’s what I actually want people to walk away with. Good outreach isn’t about sounding impressive. It’s about being specific, being honest about who you are right now, and giving the other person something real to say yes to.

Most actors think a good pitch is the one that sounds the most polished. I think a good pitch is the one that sounds the most like a real person paying attention. The Dream Agent Letter is just a trick to get people to write like a real person before their nerves talk them out of it. So I really suggest that you try it yourself, this week, even if you’re not actively pitching anyone right now. Write the thank you letter to the agent, manager, or dream client you want most. Then come back in a week and pull out your own core four. You’ll be surprised what you already know about why you’d be a good fit. You were just waiting for permission to say it out loud.

ON THE CALENDAR THIS MONTH:

🎙TONIGHT Commercial Brand Manifestos, Thursday July 16, 730pm EST
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/onYZEHXz/checkout

🎙Singing in Children’s Media, Tuesday July 21, 730pm EST
Participation: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/cpFHo9E6/checkout
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/s3FVqmzF/checkout

🎙IVR and Telephony, Wednesday July 29, 730pm EST
Participation: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/e7oQesAi/checkout
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/NVEi2U3n/checkout

I hadn’t really understood at first…then I went down a rabbit hole.

There’s a new marketing fad taking over the internet and digital media space right now called “clipping.” Basically, “clippers” take long-form content, podcasts, livestreams, webinars, whatever, and chop it into bite-sized clips for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts. Brands love it because it’s cheap. Way the hell cheaper than paid ads. Cheaper than a full influencer (In 2025, top paid influencers were getting between $50k-$100k per post). Some estimates put clipping at pennies per thousand views. And of course, there’s already a whole gig economy built around it and it all started with livestreamers. Then it ate the music industry. Now brands are folding it into their standard marketing playbook.

So here’s my question, and it’s the same question I always ask when a new “efficiency” trend shows up in this industry: who’s getting paid, and who’s just getting used?Because if you’re a voiceover actor and you narrate a podcast, a corporate training video, an audiobook, anything with your voice on it, that recording is now raw material. Someone can pull a fifteen-second chunk of you, slap it on TikTok with no context, and it can outperform the entire piece you were actually hired and paid for. There’s not compensation, not even a credit. That’s just your voice, unbundled from the job you agreed to, floating around doing free marketing labor for a project you have no stake in. Or maybe even stakes AGAINST!

And the ethics of this are murky by design. Nobody built clipping to be transparent!! Ya kiddin??? It was built to be fast, cheap, and viral! Context is the first thing that gets cut when the goal is a hook in the first two seconds. Oh, sound familiar? Yeah, it should because this is the same pattern I keep writing about. A number gets stripped of the context that made it meaningful in the first place, and then it gets sold to you as a great deal. A $40-a-song buyout looks generous until you realize it’s for unlimited perpetual use. A booking stat looks impressive until you realize it’s not tied to any actual income. Clipping is the same move, just applied to your literal voice instead of your resume.

Now, I’m not saying clipping is pure evil. I don’t have enough data yet. And I do think that there’s a version of this that could actually work in our favor. If brands are hungry for short, punchy, clip-ready audio, that’s a deliverable we could start pricing and pitching directly, on our terms, with our rights spelled out up front. The read designed to be chopped, instead of the read that gets chopped without anyone asking. But that only works if we see it coming. And I’m telling you I DO! Hey, GVAA, get ready. This is coming down the pike. Consider this me flagging it. Read your contracts. Ask where your audio is going after the check clears. And the next time someone tells you a rate or a deal sounds great, ask what got left out of the sentence to make it sound that way.

That question has never once let me down.

ON THE CALENDAR THIS MONTH:

🎙STARTING NEXT WEEK: THE AUDITION EXPERIENCE SUMMER COHORT IS OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT! In this 2 week role-playing experience, you will be exposed to various types of copy from commercial to interactive, medical to political and more. You’ll receive 3-5 auditions a day and feedback at the end of the two weeks. Grab your spot now! https://www.astoriaredheadvoiceover.com/the-experience

🎙Radio Imaging: Monday July 13, 730pm EST
Participation: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/cNnLEhi2/checkout
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/aKFpWViV/checkout

🎙Commercial Brand Manifestos, Thursday July 16, 730pm EST
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/onYZEHXz/checkout

🎙Singing in Children’s Media, Tuesday July 21, 730pm EST
Participation: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/cpFHo9E6/checkout
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/s3FVqmzF/checkout

🎙IVR and Telephony, Wednesday July 29, 730pm EST
Participation: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/e7oQesAi/checkout
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/NVEi2U3n/checkout

They didn’t come. And it’s not because I was doing their system “wrong”.

And it’s not because I wasn’t talented or because I wasn’t working hard enough. But because their plan was their plan, built for their voice, their range, their specific moment in this industry. It wasn’t mine. And instead of trusting that, instead of experimenting and adapting and finding what actually worked for me, I kept waiting for permission to try something different. My logic was that if I had spent all this time and energy and money investing into this system, I should follow it like the Bible and not color outside the lines if I wanted it to “work.”

But that’s the thing nobody talks about in this industry. We are so thoroughly trained to follow that we’ve forgotten how to lead. Ourselves. Our own careers. Our imagination is the foundation of this entire career. It’s the VERY THING we need to utilize to even have this job. And we've stopped letting it breathe.

Think about what you do in the booth. Nobody hands you a roadmap for how to interpret a piece of copy. You make choices. You decide where the breath goes, where the emphasis lands, what emotion lives underneath the words. You do that instinctively, confidently, (hopefully) because you’ve accepted that interpretation is yours to own. But the moment we step outside the booth? We freeze. We look around for someone to tell us what to do next. What marketing strategy to use. How to pitch. Whether it’s “okay” to try something new or whether some opportunity will evaporate because we deviated from the accepted approach.

This is how careers DIE. I talked about this a little bit at Get Outta Your Booth last month.

I recalled a clear moment in my career where I stopped asking: I found myself sitting at my kitchen table with a spreadsheet full of prospects, a pitch template I’d bought from someone with a very successful podcast, and a response rate that was making me question everything. I’d done exactly what I was told! I was being the perfect little A+ Marketing student! The subject lines were “optimized”. The follow-up sequence was “timed perfectly”. The email was “professional and polished” and completely, utterly not me.

One day, out of frustration more than strategy, I scrapped the template entirely and wrote an email the way I actually talk. Direct. A little funny (I’d hoped). No fluff. I found a company whose LinkedIn video had no voiceover, recorded one for them in twenty minutes, and sent it with three sentences and a link.

They wrote back the same day.

That one email, the one I wrote without anyone’s permission, without a course or a template or a guarantee, taught me more about my business than the thousands of dollars I’d spent on other people’s systems. Not because it was magic. But because it was mine!!! I’d made a choice, taken a risk, and found out something true about how I work. Nobody gave me permission to do that. I just did it. And that’s the whole lesson.

Week after week, I have free consults with actors at various stages in their careers who almost ALWAYS come to the call with the same issue: they’re not scaling. And the majority of the time it’s because they’re following a system they purchased that’s so rigid, there’s no room to interpret for themselves. The issue usually isn’t their audio or their website—-it’s USUALLY THEIR STRATEGY that hasn’t been updated since their last purchase. They’ve spent so much money on the thing that promised them results that they can’t look outside of it. So instead of thinking the system may be flawed, or, at least not the right system for them, they start to look inward: “something must be wrong with me.” And that’s a trap if I ever heard one.

Now look, no one is going to tap you on the shoulder and say yes, now you’re ready, now you have permission to take up space in this industry in a way that’s actually yours. That moment doesn’t exist. It was never part of the deal. What exists is the choice to try something and see what happens. To send the email that doesn’t follow the template. To pitch a client in a way that feels true to you rather than lifted from someone else’s playbook. To fail at something specific and learn something real, instead of succeeding at someone else’s plan and learning nothing about yourself at all.

The fear of failure in this industry is enormous. I know because I lived inside it for years. We’re so afraid that one wrong move, one experiment that doesn’t land, one audition where we took a risk and it didn’t connect, will close a door permanently. So we play it safe. We follow the rules. We do the thing the way we were told to do the thing. And then we wonder why nothing changes. Go figure.

Here’s what I know now, after years of marketing my business in a way that nobody taught me, that I figured out by trying and failing and trying again: the people who build lasting careers in this industry are not the ones who followed the best system. They’re the ones who were willing to find out what worked for them specifically, even when that meant getting it wrong first. I’m not saying I didn’t learn anything from those other systems—-but I did learn more about what not to do for my business than what I should be doing in that way.

Guess what, buttercup: you are allowed to experiment. You are allowed to try a pitch strategy that no guru endorsed. You are allowed to take a risk in the booth that might not land. You are allowed to build a career that looks like yours instead of a copy of someone else’s success story. Because those rarely, if ever, stick around.

Nobody is giving you permission…I mean, except me, right now….stop waiting for someone else to say yes go do the thing and just do it. Try it.

Your Homework

This week I want you to try one thing you haven’t done before without asking anyone if it’s okay first. Not a big thing, don’t go reinventing yourself or anything because that’s loony tunes. Just one thing.

Maybe it’s a pitch email written entirely in your own voice with no template in sight. Maybe it’s a cold outreach to a company you’ve been too intimidated to contact. Maybe it’s an audition where you make a bold choice you’ve been second-guessing and you just commit to it.

Do the thing. Log what happens. Not whether it “worked”, whether it booked, whether it got a response. Just what you learned about yourself by doing it without permission. That’s the data that actually builds a career. Report back.

ON THE CALENDAR THIS MONTH:

🎙STARTING NEXT WEEK: THE AUDITION EXPERIENCE SUMMER COHORT IS OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT! In this 2 week role-playing experience, you will be exposed to various types of copy from commercial to interactive, medical to political and more. You’ll receive 3-5 auditions a day and feedback at the end of the two weeks. Grab your spot now! https://www.astoriaredheadvoiceover.com/the-experience

🎙Radio Imaging: Monday July 13, 730pm EST
Participation: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/cNnLEhi2/checkout
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/aKFpWViV/checkout

🎙Commercial Brand Manifestos, Thursday July 16, 730pm EST
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/onYZEHXz/checkout

🎙Singing in Children’s Media, Tuesday July 21, 730pm EST
Participation: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/cpFHo9E6/checkout
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/s3FVqmzF/checkout

🎙IVR and Telephony, Wednesday July 29, 730pm EST
Participation: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/e7oQesAi/checkout
Audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/NVEi2U3n/checkout

What is your career goal?

If the answer is anything like “I want to be a full-time working voice actor” or “I want to make more money in VO” or “I want to get an agent”… all of those make sense as things you want but… those are not goals. They’re wishes.

A goal has a number. A goal has a date. A goal has a specific action attached to it that you can complete and measure and know that you did it. Things with real measurable actions and results.

Today in the last day of the Tune-Up, I am walking through the SMART goal framework applied specifically to voiceover, a reverse engineering template for the next ninety days, and the priority action matrix that tells you what to work on first when everything feels equally urgent. You’ve heard me talk about SMART goals a ton here and it’s not without reason—-they fuckin’ work.

“I want to make more money.”
“I want to land a commercial.”
“I want a AAA video game.”
“If I had an agent, everything would fall into place.”

Here’s why those aren’t goals.

“Full-time working voice actor” means something completely different to everyone who says it. To one person it means two thousand dollars a month and creative freedom. To another it means six figures and to be in the Union. To another it means they just want to quit their day job, any day job, for any amount. All of those are legitimate!! None of them are goals.

Goals require specificity. They require a number, a date, a specific action that you can complete, measure, and know that you did. Guessing about your accomplishments isn’t exactly helping anyone. “I want to be full time” is the destination without an address. You can’t build a route to a destination without an address!

The SMART framework

So let’s break down the acronym one more time. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound. These will HELP YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT TO DO so you never have to say, “what do I do next?!”

Specific: what exactly are you trying to do? Not a category. A thing. Not “book more commercial work.” How many auditions per week? On what platforms? In which markets? By when?

Measurable: can you track whether you did it? Hint: If you can’t count it or complete it, it’s not measurable.

Achievable: do your current materials, skills, and available hours actually support this goal? Or did you set it based on where you want to be rather than where you currently are?

Relevant: does this goal actually move you toward the career you described? Or is it busy work that feels productive?

Time-bound: what is the date? Not someday but a specific date on a specific calendar.

The transformation

Now let’s put it into practice.

Vague: “I want to be full-time in voiceover.”

SMART: By October 1st I will have sent direct outreach to twenty commercial production companies, followed up with ten of them, booked two new direct clients, and generated one thousand dollars in income outside of casting platforms.

Same destination but with a completely different path that is specific and is one that you can actually work backward from. With this, you can actually plan build a week of work around. This tells you EXACTLY what to do tomorrow morning which, is something that stops a lot of actors in their tracks.

The ninety-day reverse engineering template

Take your SMART goal. Write it at the top of a page. Now work backwards. Ask:

What has to be true by month three for the goal to be reachable?
What has to be true by month two for month three to be possible?
What has to be true by month one for month two to be possible?
What do I have to do this week for month one to be on track?
What do I have to do today?

THAT’S YOUR PLAN!!! Not a list of things you want but a real sequence of things that have to happen in order. If you work backwards from the goal to today, you will almost always find that the first action is smaller and more specific than you expected. That’s a good sign. Specific small actions are the ones that actually get done.

The priority action matrix

When everything feels equally urgent, use this to decide what to work on first. Ask two questions about each item on your to-do list. Is this high impact? Meaning, if I do this, does it move me meaningfully closer to my goal? Is this time-sensitive? Meaning, does it need to happen now or does it just feel like it needs to happen now?

High impact and time-sensitive: do this first, today.
High impact and not time-sensitive: schedule this for this week, block the time.
Low impact and time-sensitive: delegate, delay, or do it fast and move on.
Low impact and not time-sensitive: take it off the list entirely.

Most voice actors spend most of their time in the bottom two quadrants. The work that builds careers lives in the top two.

Your one commitment

You’ve had five days and I’ve given you five specific things. Some of them you already did. Some of them you wrote down and haven’t done yet. Some of them landed and some of them did not. That’s ok. But before you close this tab I want you to write down one thing:

Something specific that you will do before next Friday. Send the pitch you wrote on Day Three. Fix the demo placement you identified on Day One. Write your SMART goal and put it somewhere you will see it every day.

One thing. Specific. With a day attached to it. The gap between knowing and doing is where careers die. You now know. So. go do.

ON THE CALENDAR THIS MONTH:

🎙THE AUDITION EXPERIENCE SUMMER COHORT IS OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT! In this 2 week role-playing experience, you will be exposed to various types of copy from commercial to interactive, medical to political and more. You’ll receive 3-5 auditions a day and feedback at the end of the two weeks. Grab your spot now! https://www.astoriaredheadvoiceover.com/the-experience

Sure, you already know what to do in the booth. That’s the part nobody wants to hear. Because if you already know, then the thing standing between you and the performance you are capable of is not information.

It’s fear.

Fear sounds like your inner critic telling you to play it safe. To do the version that’s “correct” instead of the version that is alive and to quite your creative mind so you manage the performance from the outside instead of being inside it.

Managed performances do not book!!! Present ones do.

Today in the Tune-Up, I am sharing three specific exercises you can do in the booth right now to get out of your own way, plus the self-direction checklist I use before every session.

The performance that books is almost never the one where the actor was trying the hardest. It’s the one where they got out of their own way long enough to actually be in the room.

The fear/instinct distinction

Fear and instinct feel identical in the body. Both of them tell you to do something different from what you are currently doing. The difference is this: Instinct moves you toward something. It pulls you into the copy, into the character, into the moment. Fear moves you away. It pulls you toward safety, toward correctness, toward the version that cannot be criticized because you followed all the directions.

Before you go into the booth, ask yourself which one is talking. If you’re honest, you’ll know the difference.

Three exercises to do before your next session

Exercise one: the unsafe take.

Record your safe take first. The one you know is technically correct and the one you would send if you were playing it safe. Then record the take where you do the thing you talked yourself out of. Maybe a really bold choice or one that felt like “too much”. Maybe something you do that makes you a little nervous. Then listen back to both. The one you were afraid of is almost always more interesting. Prove me wrong.

Exercise two: the no-plan take.

Don’t think about the copy before this take. Don’t plan your pacing or your emphasis or your emotional approach. Just start talking and mean it. No decisions made in advance. Just go. This take will surprise you. Sometimes it’s the one! Try it.

Exercise three: the physical take.

Stand up. Do what Olivia Newton-John always sang about and get physical! Move while you record if you can. If you can’t move, change something physical like your posture, where you’re looking, what you’re doing with your hands. The body carries emotion that the mind cannot access on command. Change what the body is doing and the performance follows. I know it sounds obvious. But sometimes we get so wrapped up in what we’re doing that tension traps our ability to emote. Set yourself free.

The self-direction checklist

Use this before every session and every audition.

Ask: Who am I talking to? Name the specific person. Not “the audience.” One specific human being. See them. Print out a picture if you need to.

Ask: What do I want from them? Not generally. Specifically. What do I need them to feel or do or decide by the end of this?

Ask: What is true about this that I actually believe? Find the one thing in the copy that is genuinely true and anchor the whole read there.

Ask: Where am I in this moment? Not the character’s backstory. What is happening right now in the scene, in the room, in this specific line?

Ask: What am I not doing? Name the safe choice and consciously decide not to make it.

That’s it. Five questions. Two minutes before you hit record. Makes a WORLD of difference when you’re invested and connected.

On shitty scripts

Not every piece of copy you receive is good. Shocking, I know! Some of it is vague or it contradicts itself or it’s obviously AI. Some of it was clearly written by someone who has never heard a human being speak out loud and that’s the most common.

But all of this doesn’t mean you can’t give a great fucking performance. It means you have to do more of the work yourself. Yeah, I know, work can be a dirty word for some. But get used to it if you actually want to book.

When the copy is not helping you, find the one thing that is true. The one word or phrase that you can actually mean. Anchor the entire read there and let everything else serve that one true thing. That’s what it means to be grounded! A great performance on bad copy is one of the most impressive things a voice actor can do. It can be heard through the noise and it’s so memorable!!! It’s also one of the most marketable. If you can make bad copy sound good, the clients who write bad copy, and there are a lot of them, will hire you again and again.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Tune-Up (I know, you’re heartbroken). And naturally, we’re talking about your goals. Specifically why the goal most voice actors have is not actually a goal and what to replace it with!

ON THE CALENDAR THIS MONTH:

🎙THE AUDITION EXPERIENCE SUMMER COHORT IS OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT! In this 2 week role-playing experience, you will be exposed to various types of copy from commercial to interactive, medical to political and more. You’ll receive 3-5 auditions a day and feedback at the end of the two weeks. Grab your spot now! https://www.astoriaredheadvoiceover.com/the-experience

Yeahhhh don’t pretend like you haven’t conceived and sent something almost verbatim to this.

Most of the cold outreach emails I’ve seen sent by voice actors have the same problem. They’re boring. The’re about the sender. They don’t have a CTA. Three paragraphs about experience, a list of equipment, a request to be kept in mind for future projects, and a sign-off that thanks the recipient for their time.

The recipient reads it, thinks nothing specific, and moves on.

The email that books meetings is about the recipient. It names something real about their work. It makes a tiny, specific ask. And it is not 60 sentences long.

Today in the Tune-Up, I am sharing the exact three-sentence formula, a side-by-side example of a bad pitch and a good one, and a template you can customize and send today.

The email above has been sent to every person on your list by every voice actor you know (and thousands of others you don’t).

It could have been sent by anyone. It could be sent to anyone. There is no evidence of research. There is no specific ask. There is nothing in it that gives the recipient a reason to respond. Here’s why it doesn’t work in plain terms: it’s all about you, ya narcissist. I’m kidding of course, (about the narcissist part…I hope) But, understand, the recipient doesn’t even know you. And they certainly don’t owe you attention. The only way to earn their attention is to make the email about them first.

My three-sentence formula

Sentence one: something specific about their work that proves you actually looked. Not “I love your company.” Something real. Something you could only say about this specific company and nobody else. Something that ties you to them.

Sentence two: here is who I am and here is a link to my demo. One sentence. Not a full resume.

Sentence three: a low-friction ask. Not “can I pick your brain?” Not “please keep me in mind for future projects.” Something specific and easy to say yes (and no) to. Can I send you a custom sample? Would it be helpful to hear my commercial reel?

That is the pitch. Three sentences. Done.

The side-by-side

Ok so you know the bad but let’s refresh here:

Subject: Voice Actor Introduction

Hi there, I am a professional voice actor with over ten years of experience in commercial, narration, and character work. I have a professional home studio that includes a Neumann u87 with an Apollo Twin interface, with broadcast quality sound treatment and I can turn around most projects within 24 hours. I would love to be considered for any upcoming projects you may have. Please find my demo reel attached. Thank you so much for your time. Looking forward to hearing from you.

🤢

Something a little bit better:

Read more

I happen to know that your demo isn’t bad because you cannot do the work. You rock! But it’s because the demo is pointed in the wrong direction, or it is too long, or the first ten seconds are not doing what the first ten seconds need to do.

Casting directors make a decision about a demo in just a few seconds. Everything after that is either confirming or reversing that first impression and, well, that could be a very good thing or not such a good thing.

Most demos…. do not survive their own opening.

Today, I’m walking through the five most common demo mistakes I see, a five-question live audit you can do on your own demo right now, and the three decisions to make this week: fix it, reposition it, or have a conversation with your producer.

Ok so, no doubt you know what I’m about to ask of you: Pull up your website. Find your demo. Press play. Listen to the first ten seconds like you are a casting director who has never heard of you and has limited time (and most likely patience).

What impression do those ten seconds create? Is it immediate and specific? Does it tell you in ten seconds who this person is and what kind of work they do? Or is it a little vague? A little generic? A little like it could be anyone? A little too loud? A little too…desperate? That is the audit. Everything else is details.

So let’s get into the meat here. (Sorry vegetarians)

The five most common demo mistakes I see

Mistake 1: Wrong genre placement

The first demo on your homepage should be your strongest, not your favorite. The demo that lives at the top of your homepage is having a conversation with every casting director who lands there before you say a single word. That conversation should be about the work you can book right now, not the work you wish you were doing. Wishes in business are swell but only if you can actualize them. If you want to book commercial work but your homepage leads with narration, you are already having the wrong conversation. So many actors tell me they want to do “more” than what they’re doing but haven’t positioned themsleves to do it. Doing “more” requires doing the work that gets you there, not decorating your homepage with the work you hope someone will eventually trust you with.

So, if you want to do animation but you have no animation demo or samples, putting an animation section on your homepage does not make you an animation voice actor. It makes you a voice actor with aspirations and a gap where the evidence should be. Casting directors are not in the business of taking chances on potential. They are in the business of solving problems quickly. Your audio is the proof that you can solve their specific problem. If the proof is not there, the conversation is over. You have to be strategic and brave! Create the content you want to be doing and start being honest about your abilities. Do you need to take more classes? Do you need to flesh out your original characters?

You do not lead with the thing you are building toward. You lead with the thing you have already built.

Mistake 2: Too damn long

Industry standard for a commercial demo is sixty to ninety seconds. (Narration can go a little longer but if you’re doing audiobooks, it’s really a different beast) If yours is longer than two minutes, something in there is not earning its place. I PROMISE. So do yourself a favor and time your hero demo right now. (and then make sure you have a time stamp on it on your website) Listen through and find the cut. You probably don’t have to re-record. You may just need to trim. But if it’s too long, you’re signaling to the world that you don’t understand the space you’re trying to work in.

Mistake 3: No SEO text around the player

We covered this yesterday but it is worth repeating in the context of your demo specifically. A casting director who finds you through Google search is already pre-sold on the idea of you before they press play. But they can only find you through Google if there is text on your page that tells Google what your demo is. I know it sounds ancillary, and to be honest I really thought it was. It’s not. All you need to do is add a few sentences above (and below if you want, it’s an extra but it does help) every piece of audio. Do it today.

Mistake 4: Demoing what you want to book instead of what you can book right now

A demo is evidence. It is not a vision board. If your demo doesn’t reflect your current actual skill level and castability, it is working against you. I know that this may be the hardest question to answer honestly: is this demo getting me the work I want or the work I used to want?

Mistake 5: One demo trying to do everything

This is really common. And I think it’s because we get so hung up on showing “range”. A single demo that jumps between medical narration, children’s character work, political advertising, and commercial reads is not a demo. It is a source of confusion. Even a demo that goes from one extreme to the next isn’t doing you any favors because storytelling is crucial. You don’t wanna come across as manic. You need at least one piece of audio per niche and labeled clearly. That is always more effective than one demo that tries to prove range by covering everything.

So here’s what you need to do next. Your own audit. And you can start here:

The five-question audit

Answer these about your current demo:

One: Where does my demo live on my homepage? Is it above the fold? If you need more help with this, make sure to reference yesterday’s post.

Two: How long is it? Time it right now. Add the timestamp to your player.

Three: What niche does the opening few seconds signal? Is that the vertical you are trying to book?

Four: Is there descriptive text around the player?

Five: Is this the demo that gets me the work I want right now, or is it a snapshot of who I was two years ago?

The three decisions

After the audit you are in one of three situations:

The demo is strong and well-placed and just needs some SEO text and repositioning. Do that today. No producer required.

The demo is technically fine but it is pointing in the wrong direction. You have shifted verticals or goals since you recorded it. This is a repositioning conversation, not a re-recording conversation. Think about which demos to lead with and how to describe them. This is a one-afternoon project.

The demo does not reflect what you can do in the booth anymore. You have grown. The recording has not. This is the conversation to have with your producer. Come to that conversation with three things: what vertical you are targeting, what your current skill level actually is, and what specific type of work you want to book in the next six months. A good producer works backward from those answers.

And my little secret sauce: The YouTube Playlist System

Here is the maintenance plan that keeps your demo competitive without re-recording every year.

Build a private YouTube playlist for every vertical and niche you work in or want to work in. For example, Children’s Media is a huge vertical and there are several niches within that: toys, games, toy commercials, audio description, eLearning, audiobooks, story/circle time, etc. Put your current demo in the playlist. Then add audio you have that supports you—-samples are great here.

This helps you create specific, curated content for specific buyers. This sets you apart from someone just sending one demo. This shows you’re the expert, that you’ve done the work to understand the space, and are actually capable of doing it beyond the shiny, sparkly, moment in time your demo provides.

Fifteen minutes a month. That is the whole system.

Tomorrow we are talking about your pitch. Specifically what is wrong with the cold outreach emails most voice actors are sending and how to fix it in three sentences.

See you then.

ON THE CALENDAR THIS MONTH:

🎙THE AUDITION EXPERIENCE SUMMER COHORT IS OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT! In this 2 week role-playing experience, you will be exposed to various types of copy from commercial to interactive, medical to political and more. You’ll receive 3-5 auditions a day and feedback at the end of the two weeks. Grab your spot now! https://www.astoriaredheadvoiceover.com/the-experience

🎙 TONITE! BUILDING A TOYS AND GAMES PACKAGE, JUNE 23rd 730PM EST In this VO Gym we’re working copy AND building your roadmap for actually marketing yourself in this space. Who are the real buyers? What does a toys and games niche demo need to contain to open doors and does it even make sense for you yet? How do you find and approach Hasbro, a toy startup, or an indie game company without sending another email that gets ignored? You’ll leave with copy worked, targets identified, and a clear next step

$20 to audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/MjcTLXSL/checkout

When it comes to whether your website is helping or not, there is no middle ground. No “it’s pretty good but.”

Let’s envision a common scenario: A casting director lands on your page. They have seventeen seconds and zero obligation to stay. In those seventeen seconds your website either answers the question “can this person do what I need” or it does not. And I hate to be the one to tell ya, most VO websites do not answer it. And again, it’s not because the actor is not talented but because the website is not doing its job. This usually stems from a combination of bad advice, attempts at mimicking trends, and a poor understanding of the important elements Google uses to index. Luckily, those things can be remedied with a little bit of knowledge and patience.

This week I am offering a “Tune Up” week full of posts that answer some of the most common questions, provide ailments to the most common wounds, and more importantly, shedding light on the stuff we don’t typically talk about because we’re embarrassed because we “should already know it” or we simply don’t have the time to become experts in these areas and we all just do the best we freaking can. And naturally, homework to keep you all accountable.

Today is the website.

If you want the full audit framework, the 32-point checklist, and the exact text to add around every demo player on your site so Google actually knows what it is, that is in today’s post. Let’s get into it.

Here is the fastest website audit you will ever do.

Five questions—-help and insights to help you TODAY. Ok so:

Pull up your homepage right now. On your phone is fine. Actually it could be better since most people looking to hire actors are using mobile. I will wait.

Got it? Good. Answer these five questions honestly.

Question 1: Is your demo above the fold?

Above the fold means visible without scrolling. This was actually an issue for me for the last, oh, I dunno, TEN YEARS. (head smack).

Read more

The first session was conducted over ipDTL. I never saw the coach’s face. Not once. That’s a small thing, maybe. But the absence of presence set the tone for everything that followed and I want to sit with it for a second, because I think it reveals something.

And look, I am not someone who loves being on camera. I made a TikTok about it yesterday and someone pushed back, asking how I could dislike cameras and still offer 1:1 coaching and classes. Fair question. Here’s the answer: because there’s a difference between performing for a lens and showing up for a person. When I’m coaching, I’m there 100%, face, energy, full attention because that’s what the work requires. Being present with someone isn’t a bonus feature. It’s the entire job.

A coach who won’t show their face in a session they’re being paid for has already told you something about how much they value your time. But this was only a little thing compared to the rest of the session.

We did not work on a single piece of copy. Not one. There was no script, no direction, no performance feedback, no agenda. What there was, instead, was a lengthy tour through this person’s career highlights. Their bookings. Their experiences. Their opinions about the industry delivered as monologue. I sat there and waited for a gap to ask a question. It never came. I DID NOT ASK ONE QUESTION IN THE ENTIRE 50 MINUTES.

The second session didn’t even happen. And look, I wanna be fair here. Life is unpredictable. Emergencies are real. Things come up, and I genuinely understand that. I'm not a monster. But I never got a link to the session and instead got a cancellation message thirty minutes before we were supposed to start. A legal emergency, I was told. I had been planning for this for over a week. Had paid within the hour of confirming it. Had gotten myself hyped! Had rearranged my day, which, as some of you know, is usually quite full and I often teach or coach in the evenings so I was giving up my working hours for this lesson. I waited. Two hours later: “false alarm”. And then, almost immediately after that, a text: “are you available at 9pm?”

Nine. PM.

I share these not to relitigate them, but because I know. I freaking KNOW I am not the only one who has sat in a session like this. I know because voice actors tell me. In my DMs, in the comments, in hushed tones like it’s something to be embarrassed about. Like they should have known better.

They couldn’t have known better. THAT’S THE WHOLE PROBLEM.

Popularity is not a credential

And here’s where I wanna get out my magnifying glass because the thing about voiceover coaching that the industry does not want to examine too closely is that the people who are considered the “go-to” coaches are often not evaluated on their ability to teach. They’re evaluated on their visibility. The money they say they make. And a few other little things that have nothing to do with their pedagogy.

How many followers do they have? Do they speak at VO Atlanta? Are they in the Facebook groups with the blue checkmarks and the pinned posts? Did they get quoted in that one article? Have you heard of them?

None of those questions have anything to do with didactics and credentials as a coach. None of them tell you whether someone can identify what’s wrong with your read and give you a note that actually fixes it. None of them tell you whether someone can hold space for a student who is struggling, ask good questions, or shut up long enough to listen.

But they are, functionally, the entire basis on which most beginners choose a coach.

And why wouldn’t they be? When you are new to an industry, you don’t have the frame of reference to evaluate expertise. You can’t listen to a coach’s demo and identify whether they’re still relevant to the current market. You can’t read a testimonial and know if it came from a student who actually booked work or just felt good about the session. You see the “celebrity” or “veteran” coaches who have SEO out the ass and they showed up first in search results. You go with the name you’ve heard the most. You go with whoever your other beginner friends are also going to.

The coaching industry is self-reinforcing. Popularity creates more popularity. Credibility is passed around like a hot potato among the same small circle of visible names and the people who pay the price are the students. Like me. Like you.

The conflict of interest nobody talks about

Of course I am not saying all VO coaching is bad. Hell I’m a coach! And I am not certainly not saying coaches should not be compensated for their time and expertise. I am saying the system by which we determine who counts as an expert is broken, and the consequences of that brokenness fall entirely on the people who can least afford it: beginners, people who are career-changing, people who saved up for months to afford a session. Because let’s be reallllllllly fuckin’ honest, these folks are charging big money.

There is also a specific conflict of interest baked into the coaching model that the industry talks around but never talks about directly.

When a coach is also the person who produces your demo, or who refers you to the person who does, there is a financial incentive to move you toward a demo before you are ready. When a coach’s income depends on a rotating roster of students, there is an incentive to keep you coming back without necessarily moving you forward. When a coach’s reputation is built on testimonials, there is an incentive to make you feel good in the session rather than tell you the hard thing you actually need to hear.

I am not saying every coach is making these calculations consciously. I am saying the structure creates the incentive, and incentives shape behavior whether we acknowledge them or not.

What you can’t know until you’re in the room

This is the part that keeps me up at night, honestly. The first session happened months ago and I’m still thinking about it——mostly because that person is still in our faces. Showing up and selling their services. And now that I know the truth—-confirmed by other people as well—-it BOTHERS ME.

I went into those sessions with my eyes and my cold little heart open. I have been in this industry long enough to have some instincts, some skepticism, some ability to evaluate what I’m receiving. And I still couldn’t fully assess the situation until I was already in it. Until I was already sitting there watching the clock, realizing this wasn’t what I signed up for.

And it’s this realization that a beginner has no chance that crushes me.

A beginner doesn’t necessarily know that a coaching session should involve actual copy work. They don’t know that a coach who talks about themselves for 45 minutes is not giving them what they’re owed. They don’t know that a 9pm reschedule request is a boundary violation dressed up as flexibility. They think this is just what coaching is. They think if they aren’t getting value, it’s because they aren’t advanced enough to receive it yet. Because we have made that acceptable.

And that assumption, that the student is the variable, not the coach, is exactly what an under-qualified coach is counting on.

The student blames themselves. The coach keeps their reputation. The industry keeps recommending them. Nothing changes.

So what do you actually do with this?

I’ve been sitting with the question of how to end this piece in a way that isn’t just righteous venting because righteous venting without utility is just noise, and you deserve more than that. I am not saying I have the answers, ok? But here is what I’d tell someone who is about to spend money on a coaching session:

• Ask the coach when they last booked work. Not their biggest booking ever. Recently. Ask them what the current rate environment looks like for the vertical you’re working in (or want to be working in). Ask them what their session will specifically cover and get it in writing if you can. Ask for references from students who were at your level and not their most successful alumni.

• Ask them what their session will specifically cover before you pay. Get it in writing if you can. A prepared coach will have no problem answering this. An unprepared one will give you something vague about “it depends on where you are” and hope you don’t push back.

• Ask what software or platform the session will be conducted on and whether you’ll be able to see each other. Presence matters.

• Ask if you’ll be working on actual copy during the session. This should not be a controversial question. It should be the default. If it surprises them, that is your answer.

• Ask how they benchmark your progress.

• Ask what their style of teaching consists of.

(And pay attention to how they respond to all of those questions. A great coach will find them reasonable. A coach who is more invested in their status than their students will find them threatening.)

There are genuinely excellent coaches in this industry. (I hope to be included amongst them) People who have stayed current, who have built real pedagogical skill alongside their performance careers, who will tell you the hard thing because they respect you enough to believe you can handle it. They exist. I have worked with some of them. They changed what I do and how I think about this work.

But the industry does not make them easy to find, because the industry does not reward teaching ability. It rewards fame. And until that changes, until we really start asking harder questions and demanding real accountability from the people we pay to help us, the system will keep producing the same results.

You deserve a coach who shows up prepared. Who works on copy with you. Whose face you can see. Who does not reschedule you into the next time zone two hours after a false alarm.

The bar is not high. The problem is we’ve been told not to expect even that much.

My final thought

The last thing I’ll say here is this: everything I just described, all the questions I wish someone had told me to ask, the things I didn’t know to expect until I was already in the room…that’s what I try to bring to every session I offer. You will see my face. We will work on copy. I will come prepared, and I will tell you the hard things when the hard things are what you need to hear. Not because I’m trying to be brutal. I truly don’t believe in “brutal feedback”. But because you’re spending real money and real time on this, and you deserve someone who respects that enough to be honest with you.

My sessions are built around your material, your voice, and where you actually are right now WITH AN ACTUAL AGENDA that I have taken time before our session to prepare, not a generic curriculum designed to keep you coming back indefinitely. If that sounds like what you’ve been looking for, I’d love to work with you.

LOTS ON THE CALENDAR THIS MONTH:

🎙THE AUDITION EXPERIENCE SUMMER COHORT IS OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT! In this 2 week role-playing experience, you will be exposed to various types of copy from commercial to interactive, medical to political and more. You’ll receive 3-5 auditions a day and feedback at the end of the two weeks. Grab your spot now! https://www.astoriaredheadvoiceover.com/the-experience

🆓 AUA (Ask Us Anything), WEDNESDAY JUNE 10th 730pm EST: Join CD and Life Coach Peter Pamela Rose and myself in a free session to literally ASK US ANYTHING! Register for free here: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/ask-us-anything

🎙 $5 WEBINAR: IS YOUR DEMO HURTING YOU? In this Masterclass, you’ll learn about the 5 most common mistakes that are costing you bookings and what to do about them!!
GRAB YOUR SPOT HERE: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/is-your-demo-hurting-you

🎙TOY COMMERCIALS, JUNE 11th 730PM EST Toy commercials look simple from the outside. They are not. The difference between a read that books and a read that sounds like every other voice actor doing their “excited kid” impression is specific, learnable, and what we’re covering in this class. We’ll work real toy commercial copy, kids’ spots, parent spots, brand anthem copy and dig into energy calibration, implied audience, and how to make high-enthusiasm reads feel genuine instead of performed. If commercials are any part of your business, this is a session you don’t want to miss.
$20 to audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/FSLyoAj5/checkout

🎙 GAMES AND INTERACTIVE MEDIA, JUNE 17th 730PM EST The games industry is massive, it’s growing, and most voice actors aren’t pitching it strategically. This class covers the full range of what “games” actually means for VO: board game and tabletop, app and mobile game, and interactive media. The tonal range in this space is wild: comedic chaos, epic fantasy narration, casual mobile hype, family game night warmth. We’ll work copy from across all of it so you can hear how different these reads need to be and figure out where you fit.
$20 to audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/tvKtQT2c/checkout

🎙 BUILDING A TOYS AND GAMES PACKAGE, JUNE 23rd 730PM EST In this VO Gym we’re working copy AND building your roadmap for actually marketing yourself in this space. Who are the real buyers? What does a toys and games niche demo need to contain to open doors and does it even make sense for you yet? How do you find and approach Hasbro, a toy startup, or an indie game company without sending another email that gets ignored? You’ll leave with copy worked, targets identified, and a clear next step.
$20 to audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/MjcTLXSL/checkout

💌 EMAIL MARKETING FOR VOICEOVER ACTORS: If you’re not sure who to target and how to speak their language, these THREE email courses will help you scale your business through direct marketing.
🌟For Agents: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/wh3UQzLL/checkout
🌟For Entertainment Clients: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/YxaCyFEH/checkout
🌟For Cold Leads Outside of Entertainment: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/p87wxWS4/checkout

And of course, enrollment for THE VOICEOVER ACTOR ROAD MAP is open. If you’re ready to kick your career in gear, then please, join me for business coaching!! I can’t wait to help you craft the career you want to have. (Reach out to me for a 15% off coupon)

But before I go on and on about the show, there’s a scene where the protagonist goes to see an analyst (the great Fiona Shaw) and she asks the doctor to tell her what to do. And the doctor says, “You already know what you’re going to do.”

And so do you. You already know what to do.

That’s the part nobody wants to hear. Because if you already know, then the thing standing between you and the performance you’re capable of isn’t information.

It’s fear.

I got an email recently from a student who said something that really made me reflect. She said: “I am great with directions but get in my own way with shutting myself down to be good.”

Read that again.

Shutting herself down. To be good.

That is the most honest description of what fear does to a performer that I have ever heard. It doesn’t make you careless. It doesn’t make you sloppy. It makes you careful. Too careful. Controlled. Managed. And managed is the DEATH of instinct.

Here’s what I know after twenty years of doing this work and watching other people do it:

• The performance that books is never the one where you were trying the hardest. Sometimes I know in my bones after I send an audition that I will book it because after I audition I quietly say to myself, “Ugh. Fuck it. Whatever.”

• It’s the one where you got out of your own way long enough to just be in the room.

• The instinct was always there. The fear just had better volume.

Instinct is not a gift. It’s not something you either have or you don’t. It’s what’s left when you stop managing yourself. It’s the read you do before you’ve had time to second guess it. It’s the choice you make before your brain catches up and tells you to retract and crawl into a whole and never say another word ever again. It’s the moment in the booth when you stop performing and start meaning it.

Every actor I’ve ever worked with has had it. Not just the confident ones or the veterans. Every single one! I have watched it surface in students who came to me convinced they had nothing interesting to offer. It was there the whole time. Buried under years of being corrected, compared, and told to be better. Under childhood trauma. Hell, under adult trauma. (If you’re ready to work through that, you can schedule time with me here)

And lemme tell ya something that will hopefully rattle the little shit-bastards in your head telling you nonsense things like, “The casting directors are listening for technique!” They’re fucking not. They’re listening for the moment you forget to be careful. That’s the moment. That’s what books the job. They’re hoping and praying you arrive at it. (Sooner rather than later.) Not the take where you hit every note. The take where you believed it so completely that you stopped thinking about the notes entirely.

So here’s what I want you to do the next time you’re in the booth: Notice the moment you reach for safety. Notice the moment your brain says “that was good, don’t push it” or “play it straighter” or “that was too much.”

And then ask yourself: was that instinct telling you to pull back? Or was that fear? Because they feel identical in your body. But they are not the same thing. Instinct moves you toward something. Fear moves you away. One of them books jobs.

Here’s your Homework:

Pick a piece of copy. Any copy. Something you’ve done before or something brand new. Record three takes.

Take one: your “safe” take. The one that’s “correct”. The one you’d send if you were playing it smart. The one where you’ve convinved yourself that you’ve been able to mind-read and are doing exactly what the CD wants to hear.

Take two: the take where you do the thing you talked yourself out of in take one. The choice that felt like too much. The read that made you a little nervous.

Take three: don’t think. Just go. No plan. No adjustments. Just start talking and mean it.

Then listen back. And don’t listen for which one is best technically. For which one you’d want to listen to again.

I already know which one it is.

So do you.

LOTS ON THE CALENDAR THIS MONTH:

🎙THE AUDITION EXPERIENCE SUMMER COHORT IS OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT! In this 2 week role-playing experience, you will be exposed to various types of copy from commercial to interactive, medical to political and more. You’ll receive 3-5 auditions a day and feedback at the end of the two weeks. Grab your spot now! https://www.astoriaredheadvoiceover.com/the-experience

🎙TOYS, JUNE 8th 730PM EST June is all about Toys & Games, one of the most fun, most specific, and most underestimated markets in voiceover. We’re talking about what makes this genre its own thing, who’s buying, and what the work actually sounds like across the full range from high-energy kids’ toy spots to parent-targeted trust copy to tabletop game trailers. We’ll work copy from across the spectrum so you can start hearing where your voice naturally lands in this world. Come ready to play.
A PERFORMANCE SPOT JUST OPENED! GRAB IT WHILE YOU CAN! Email me if you want it.
$20 to audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/Xti5CCdk/checkout

🎙TOY COMMERCIALS, JUNE 11th 730PM EST Toy commercials look simple from the outside. They are not. The difference between a read that books and a read that sounds like every other voice actor doing their “excited kid” impression is specific, learnable, and what we’re covering in this class. We’ll work real toy commercial copy, kids’ spots, parent spots, brand anthem copy and dig into energy calibration, implied audience, and how to make high-enthusiasm reads feel genuine instead of performed. If commercials are any part of your business, this is a session you don’t want to miss.
$35 to participate: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/q7UKLams/checkout

$20 to audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/FSLyoAj5/checkout

🎙 GAMES AND INTERACTIVE MEDIA, JUNE 17th 730PM EST The games industry is massive, it’s growing, and most voice actors aren’t pitching it strategically. This class covers the full range of what “games” actually means for VO: board game and tabletop, app and mobile game, and interactive media. The tonal range in this space is wild: comedic chaos, epic fantasy narration, casual mobile hype, family game night warmth. We’ll work copy from across all of it so you can hear how different these reads need to be and figure out where you fit.
$20 to audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/tvKtQT2c/checkout

🎙 BUILDING A TOYS AND GAMES PACKAGE, JUNE 23rd 730PM EST In this VO Gym we’re working copy AND building your roadmap for actually marketing yourself in this space. Who are the real buyers? What does a toys and games niche demo need to contain to open doors and does it even make sense for you yet? How do you find and approach Hasbro, a toy startup, or an indie game company without sending another email that gets ignored? You’ll leave with copy worked, targets identified, and a clear next step
$20 to audit: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/MjcTLXSL/checkout

🎙 $5 WEBINAR: IS YOUR DEMO HURTING YOU? In this Masterclass, you’ll learn about the 5 most common mistakes that are costing you bookings and what to do about them!!

GRAB YOUR SPOT HERE: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/is-your-demo-hurting-you

💌 EMAIL MARKETING FOR VOICEOVER ACTORS: If you’re not sure who to target and how to speak their language, these THREE email courses will help you scale your business through direct marketing.

🌟For Agents: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/wh3UQzLL/checkout

🌟For Entertainment Clients: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/YxaCyFEH/checkout

🌟For Cold Leads Outside of Entertainment: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/offers/p87wxWS4/checkout

And of course, enrollment for THE VOICEOVER ACTOR ROAD MAP is open. If you’re ready to kick your career in gear, then please, join me for business coaching!! I can’t wait to help you craft the career you want to have. (Reach out to me for a 15% off coupon)