Episode 2 is out - Don't do this when looking for clients. Here's how to do it better

Latest episode at https://anchor.fm/anyvoices/episodes/Dont-do-this-when-looking-for-clients--Heres-how-to-do-it-better-emstij

I've seen a disturbing trend on my personal social media accounts recently - being asked to help other voice talents with opportunities. Then, I'm being asked what I do. Those personal profiles, of course, are my voice over channels. There's a better way to reach out to clients, this is a quick and simple way to take some steps to make sure your approach is better received, and has a lower chance of you being ignored or blocked. 

Some resources I mention in this episode (not sponsors of this podcast):

Headliner - https://headliner.app

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com

We'll talk more about demos and samples in a future episode!

Find us online:

WEBSITE: https://anyvoices.com

INSTAGRAM: https://Instagram.com/AnyVoices.IG

FACEBOOK: facebook.com/AnyVoices.FB

TWITTER: twitter.com/Any_Voices

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The Real Voice - Mel Allen is your host. Find out more about me at https://therealvoice.com where you'll find a sampling of projects and demos.

Hi, and welcome back to the AnyVoices Podcast my name is Mel Allen, your host, and I wanted to talk to you about something - that I've got an interview set up for AnyVoices which is great! I want to get the word out to other people who might need the help that I plan to provide here, but I want to talk about something... because it happened again today. What's happening, well I've had some people reach out to me this week, mainly on my personal social media accounts, and it's setting up a somewhat disturbing trend. People are contacting me - sending a message asking me if I can help them with any opportunities I might have for them. Some of these people, after I say unfortunately I don't, ask what it is that I do. I hope you can see how that is completely backwards!

My advice to you is this. First, know who it is that you're talking to. A little bit of research, checking out the profile, and definitely just following those links in the profile, should give you a good understanding of who someone is. Now flip that around as well. Make sure that you have links in your social media as well so that people can find out who you are and even if you don't have a demo you can put together some samples as long as you're not breaching an agreement with somebody you can put samples of your voice they're free scripts online you can write your own script you can have a friend write a script take that sample put it on a place like youtube you can have use an app like a headliner to turn that audio into a video you can make a profile on SoundCloud or anywhere else that people can access your voice there are so many out there it's hard to name them all the next part of that advice after doing some research would be don't ask your connections for help ask how you can help them more on that coming up in just a moment 

So you might be wondering how is it that I'm able to record a podcast and give you this information about the voice overacting talent community well I went to anchor and I started making my podcast there it's free and the great thing is that they have creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone your computer and they can even distribute the podcast for you so that way people can hear it on places like Spotify apple podcast and of course all of the others and you can even make money from your podcast there's no minimum listenership so what do you got to do to make your podcast in one place download the free anchor app or go to anchor fm to get started that's Anchor.fm to get started

Okay now to get back to the rest of my advice… Okay so you're reaching out to people, who you've done a little research on what they are, you're reaching out to the right person and maybe you've got some audio right? So you've got a profile. You've got links in it. You've got credibility that you're starting to establish. So let's make sure you hang on to that… so write out a couple of messages on paper, on the computer - it doesn't matter - that you would send out to potential contacts. Make sure that you're including that link to wherever your audio or your samples are now located in that message, but not as a here go check out my profile, just a friendly message of,  “I saw you're a video producer” or maybe “I saw you’re casting a fanfiction podcast” or maybe “I saw that you're making a game based on my favorite anime” and “if I can help you with any of the voices keep me in mind”, then your name and that link to wherever they can hear your voice now. Bonus points if it's relevant to what they're working on. That doesn't mean record custom audio for everyone, but there are times where you might want to -  occasionally - until you start getting some auditions and casting and getting your voice on some projects.

I'm also not going to tell you to be overconfident and ‘fake it till you make it’. It works for some, worked for me, but gaining confidence... faking that confidence isn't something that a lot of people are really good at. So you might want to practice, just as you would with any voice that you're performing.  You can pretend to be [confident], and this is how I did it, as a confident character anytime you're interacting with a potential client. Until you're good at doing that just offer to be helpful be the person that others are going to want to contact because they know that you will do good for them. The more people that believe that you will be good to them, the busier that you will be. Now admittedly... it's scary, right? There's a slight chance that somebody will want to take advantage of you, right? Of course! There are people like that everywhere, however, the chances of that person tuning you out - and maybe forever - because you're just out of the blue asking somebody to help you, and they don't even know you, that's going to be higher than the chances (I feel) that you're going to be taken advantage of. At least you can say, I was kind. I was nice, and I was helpful while I was out there. And that's good! The other side of this is... if you're asking other voices for an opportunity when that's what they do… Are they going to just hand over work that they have to a stranger? It's doubtful that they will hand you anything, but if they do… It's probably going to be somebody who maybe is a problem client that they have trouble with. Boundary issues that they have. Trouble getting paid from somebody that they don't really want to work with, and maybe somebody that you don't want to work with either.

So that's going to wrap up this. I just want to again reiterate - don't reach out to people to ask them for help. Ask if you can help them and put together some of those resources to make you look like you know what you're doing. When you're interacting with somebody digitally, it's very easy to make it look like you are all put together. As a matter of fact... if you're not putting a little bit of effort into that, you're not put together. So make sure, when you're sending that digital message, that it is the right message that you want to send.

Follow us at AnyVoices.com and definitely keep listening to the podcast! Leave us a five-star review, if you think that we are worth it on Apple Podcasts, or whatever your other platform may be, and yeah stick around we've definitely got more coming up here on the AnyVoices Podcast!