Stop Being So Shy: Why A Lack Of Self Promotion Is Stopping You Getting Voice Over Work

Do you have your picture on your voice over profile? Do you include a photo when applying for VO work? If the answers are 'no', you are making yourself less competitive.

We live in the age of the 'selfie' where people's faces are plastered all over social media; on the internet pictures of other human beings attract us much more than shadowy silhouettes. Richard Branson is synonymous with the Virgin brand and the late Steve Jobs was as much a part of the Apple identity as the stylised fruit logo.

Content marketing expert +Mark Traphagen in his revealing article on The Power Of The Personal calls it the intimacy of the identified' and in the voice over industry if your face is not associated with your voice, then you could be passed over by potential clients.

In this video  I look at why you can't afford to be shy when trying to get voice over work.

Video Transcript

Gary Terzza:                Hello. We talk a lot about marketing in Voice-Overs these days, but some people are doing themselves no favours at all. Here's why.

                                   

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                                       Let's just imagine for a moment, you've got your show reel together, you've got a bit of a commercial on that. You've got some e-learning stuff, corporate type things, perhaps a little audio book excerpt. If you want to do video games, you've got character voices and things like that. You're fairly happy with it, it's about three or four minutes worth of material and you're ready to go into the big wide voice over world.

                                        The next stage is the marketing side. A very, very important part of getting voice over work. Now what a lot of people do is they say, "Right, it's all about my voice and I'm not going to put a photo on there. I don't want my friends and family to know I'm doing voice overs. I don't want my colleagues at work to know or the boss to know I'm doing voice overs. Therefore, I'm going to be anonymous. I'm going to create a stage name. I'm not going to put a photo up there or if I am, it's going to be a photo of a cat and I'm going to promote myself in that way." I would say that is a big, big mistake.

                                        Don't be scared of promoting yourself. I know there's a thing that you think, "Well actually I'm quite shy and I hide behind my voice." I'm of the firm belief that if you don't add a photo, if you don't make yourself very contactable, if you don't say, "This is me. This is what I look like." Then you are not going to do very well in voice overs just because of the promotional side.

                                        You have to remember that at the end of the day, it is one human being, ie your client, choosing the sound of another human being, ie you, and if you dehumanize yourself by not promoting yourself and not putting a picture there or not including a photo or not making yourself contactable then you're going to come unstuck at the end of the day.

                                       Keep yourself human, make sure that people know it's you and you'll stand a much better chance of getting voice over work. That's it for today. Thanks very much for watching and I'll see you next time.

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Gary Terzza VoMasterClass.com