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Know what to expect when a client is reaching out to you for work. Be prepared to answer the most important questions.
The most common questions
So today I want to talk to you a little bit about typical questions that your clients will ask you when you book a voiceover job.
It's important to be prepared as a new voiceover talent. These are the questions that you can expect to be asked. Question number one is going to be, how much will it cost for you to record this? That is always the question that you want to take the most time and consideration on. You're going to need to know how long the piece is, what type of piece it is or what type of copy it is.
Is it commercial? Is it e-learning? Is it medical narration? Is it corporate narration? Whatever that is, you're going to need to get an idea of the length of that, and then how long it's going to take you and what your typical standard rates are going to be.
They're going to want to know. How long it's going to take you and so you have to be prepared with an estimated or guesstimated timeframe when you'll be able to record edit, upload, and complete the job for the client. I have a little time calculator that I use, especially because I do a lot of long format narration that helps me to figure out how long the job will actually take based upon the number of words that it is, and that helps me to give a guesstimate as to when I'm going to be able to get it back to the client. Now, if you're just going to do like a 30 or 60 second commercial, then I think pretty much everyone has a decent estimation of time of how long that will take in the booth. Especially if you've been auditioning for, you know, short jobs so far, it's pretty easy to gauge that.
So all you have to do is figure out where you can fit that in. If you can get that in within 24 hours or 48. Typically what clients like to hear within the 24-hour timeframe, sometimes sooner than that.
The next thing that they're going to want to know is if they need retakes, how much will they cost or will they be included?
Will you be recharging them for takes after submission of the final product? I usually in my first quote to the client,tell them up to 10% of the final word count is included for retakes in the price. The whole thing about that is that it gives those clients a little bit of a, of a bonus, kind of a value add to the job that I'm willing to put 10% of the final word count into retakes that are already included in that. Now once delivered once the final audio is delivered, they can come back with that revision up to 10% . After 10%, then I charge them on a separate rate guide.
The other thing is that your clients might try to get a better price out of you or a discount they might ask you or tell you that they have more work for you. And if they give you more work, could they get a bigger discount? My answer to that is sure if you want to include all of that work upfront, and I can include that in the final quote for the one job. However, if it is a promised amount of work, that's coming down the road. I usually, you know, people can talk a lot and say that there's going to be lots of work coming down the road because they might use that as a negotiation tactic.
I like to say, well, I cannot guarantee that I'll be available down the road. So I prefer to quote everything upfront that you have in a final form or a final version right now. And that would give you the most accurate quote.
So to wrap this. Be prepared to answer questions from the client, such as how much is this going to cost?
How long is this going to take? Do I have to pay for retakes? And if I do what will be that price, and if I give you a lot more work, can I get a bigger discount? So make sure that you're not caught off guard. You have some answers to these questions and you'll be better off for it.
Thanks so much for watching. See you next week.
Thanks for reading!
Keep on rocking your business like a #VOBOSS
About Anne:
Anne Ganguzza is a professional voice actor and award-winning director and producer who works with students to develop their voiceover and business skills - including voice over Coaching and Genre-based Demo Production. She specializes in conversational Commercial & Narration styles, including Corporate, eLearning, Technology, and On-Hold Messaging. Located in Orange County, California, Anne offers private coaching and mentoring services to students via ipDTL and Zoom.
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