My Voice Over Origin Story Part 6: Year One (The Epic Conclusion)
- Chris Butera
- Mar 7
- 6 min read
Last time, I discussed my zero years, aka the training one does leading up to starting a business as well as receiving the necessary materials to launch said business (website, demos, headshots, proper email domain and setup, etc.). This time around I’ll conclude my origin story by detailing my first year in voice over.
Nine months.
That’s how long it took me to land my first voice over job.
I could’ve had a baby, but I did an audiobook instead.
The contract had also just run out at my first marketing job, which the company had chosen not to renew after a year of learning the ropes. I was also saving for our wedding, which was about six months away, so I needed to land a job ASAP.
No pressure, right?
I came out of it sitting pretty, but let’s talk about how we got there.
Looking for a voice actor who gets the job done quick and easy? Send me an email today!
Your First Year in Voice Over is Going to Suck
Over the better part of the year, I was working with Terry Daniel and his team at UVT Coaching to get my commercial and narration voice over training, and had recently recorded and received my first voice over demos for commercials and narration.
I also received this very voice over website. I’ve since made a ton of tweaks and SEO optimizations. During this time, I was also learning about custom domains and professional email addresses, along with setting up said domain to avoid the spam filter (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.), Google Workspace, and putting my IT skills to use.
Your IT stuff is a crucial step for any business, let alone voice over.
As we were in the car on the way to Maine for a long weekend getaway, I received the hiring news and start date of my first marketing job, and my voice over logos.
Now that I had every tool in my VO arsenal, I couldn’t wait to finally start my voice over career.
I was officially in business, and a few weeks later I would be engaged. Things were looking prettay, prettay, prettay good.
Little did I know, the business of voice over is much harder than it looks.
A (Very) Rude Awakening
Nothing will humble a new voice actor more than finding out how long it takes to get your first job. Some crush it right away, but most spin for what feels like eternity.
This causes a lot of quick burnout , frustration, and turnover, and why most voice actors never reach their potential.
Every morning, evening, and lunch break, I would scour the web for production companies and eLearning businesses to contact. I’d log these places in a spreadsheet, email who I could, and make note of whom I reached out to or connected with, who was next, and other stuff worth documenting.
Eventually I’d find a way to scale this using a tool called Apollo thanks to Paul Schmidt’s VO Freedom program, which has saved me a ton of time.
Fresh faced and optimistic, I was excited to get my first voice over gig, thinking that it would come at any moment.
So I waited…
And waited…
And emailed…
And still I waited…for months…
After what felt like an eternity of nothing, I began to question where the job was, why it wasn’t working, and what I was doing wrong.
But I didn’t give up.
This was the first of several times that this has happened, with many more to go.
After talking to coaches and listening to various voice over podcasts and webinars, it turns out this is completely normal.
How Direct Marketing Really Works
When marketing directly to the client or prospect, most of the time, you will not get a response. You may not even get a gig or response for years. It’s pretty nuts.
That said, if you get a response from a prospect, you will likely see one of three email replies:
You will be added to an internal roster of voice actors clients will either choose to perform or audition for a project (this is the most common response).
You get a gig (this is rare, but it happens).
You will be told to not contact them any further/unsubscribe them from your emails/they do not work with voice actors.
Pro tip: Very rarely will someone send you a mean or nasty email. They happen, but you don’t know what someone else is going through, so don’t sweat it. Your email may have been the straw, but it was not the reason why the recipient reacted in a negative way.
While it doesn’t seem like anything is happening, you’re building momentum in the background.
Voice over is a long term numbers game, meaning the more people you reach out to, the more platforms you join, and the more auditions you do over the years, the more voice over work you will obtain. This is because the longer you do this, the better you will get at auditioning, writing emails, finding clients and prospects, quoting voice over rates, and recording.
The secret to all things, dear reader, is time.
But you have to put the work in.
How do I know?
Check out this promotional explainer video:
I did not receive a gig from this contact for years. I’m not even sure if the client responded to my original email. All I know is one day, a VO gig was waiting in my inbox, and that’s cool with me.
Hello, Momentum!
Nine months from when I officially started my voice over career, I finally got my first voice over job. Funny enough, they found me.
The first audiobook I worked on found me through a Google search. It was a Singaporean company that landed in my spam folder. I’d then land another through a platform called Findaway Voices, which I really enjoyed.
My first repeat client came through via direct marketing. They’re a British eLearning company that I still work with to this day.
A few weeks later, I got a new job and a pay bump. It was my SEO bootcamp, which set me up with a whole new skill set that I use as another arm of my business (hit me up if you’re thinking about SEO).
A few months after that, I’d attend my first voice over conference in September 2022 at VOCation in New York City – my own backyard. At this event, I learned a lot, made some new friends and fellow voice actors of all levels — one of whom was Roy Halo, a fellow chucker and sound engineer/owner of Float Studios in Los Angeles, California. Roy would later produce my animation voice over demo.
In a full circle moment, I’d also finally meet my mentor, Wolf Williams, who was speaking at the conference.
One week after the conference, I got married! It was awesome!
What a difference two years makes.
The Thing About Momentum
One of the things I’ve noticed in voice over is that momentum is one helluva drug. Once you have it, it can and will snowball.
Momentum will also stop on a dime, so it’s important to always keep working to move your business forward every day.
When you are running your own business, there will always be obstacles.
You will hit slumps.
You will question your abilities.
You will want to quit.
That’s when you need to power through and keep moving forward, because eventually you will book and book again.
I haven’t been in the voice over industry long, but I’ve been around long enough to notice that as long as you adapt and keep at it, the momentum eventually picks up, and more projects follow.
Life works the same way. It’s pretty wild.
Thank you for coming along for the ride and checking out this series on how I got started in the wacky world of voice over! It was a blast to write, and I hope you took something cool away from it. Now get out there, and make it happen!
