During my weekend at the Midwest Voice Over Conference, I had the opportunity to meet and chat with a lot of new voice actors. For some of them, the conference was their introduction into the world of voice over. For others, they’d only recently completed a demo. Some of them had booked their first job. Some of them had not.
One common thread that tied many of them together is something I remember very well from my early days.
Fear.
Perhaps nothing ruins more voice over hopes, dreams and careers than fear.
What If?
What if my demo isn’t good enough?- What if my equipment isn’t good enough?
- What if my performance isn’t good enough?
- What if my website isn’t good enough?
- What if my branding isn’t good enough?
- What if my marketing isn’t good enough?
Each person I spoke with shared stories of what was holding them back. Why they hadn’t got started yet.
At the root, I believe their fear is failure.
Now that’s something I can relate with. Talk to anyone who has accomplished any level of success in their voice over career and I’m fairly certain at some point in their journey they’ve been afraid to fail.
The one piece of advice I repeated over and over throughout the weekend was, “Just get started. Take the first step. Once you book that first voice over job, see how your confidence grows.”
In the past I’ve shared about how I got started full-time in 2012. My “studio” was my living room. My microphone was an RE-20, often considered the worst VO mic on planet earth. My demos were self produced. Basically, I was doing everything, “wrong” according to the experts. But it’s how I built my business into what it is today.
What If, Instead…?
With that in mind, why not consider, instead…
- What if your demo is just what the client wanted?
- What if your sound quality meets their specs?
- What if your performance was spot on for the role or script?
- What if your website leads to new leads?
- What if your branding catches someone’s attention?
- What if your marketing results in a booking?
Rather than expecting the worst, anticipate the best.
You might surprise yourself.
