07/30/2026
I often provide the following caveat anytime I post: “YOUR business is YOUR business and none of MY business.”
Do what you want to do, I just offer these posts from time-to-time to bring some perspective to an industry which appears to be lost in its own echo chamber.
Industry experts say “To be successful in VO you must,
…have a professional demo. (I’ve proven you don’t need one.)
…hire VO coaches and keep coaching during your career. (Not true.)
…have a functioning website. (From 2019-2025 I didn’t have a website, and I made over $1.9 million in VO-only income.)
…go to a VO conference, attend workshops, workouts, meet-ups, etc. (Nope.)
…have a growing social media presence (Nope, again.)
…follow the GVAA rate guide. (Never have and in 16 years of VO I’m closing in on $3 million in VO-only earnings.)
…stay firm on “industry standard rates” and think in a per-project way. (I fill up my days with projects – big and small.)
…stay off platforms like Fiverr and such because you can only make “hamburger money.” (In 10 full years on the platform I’ve made over $694,000.00. That’s a lot of hamburgers!”)
…always highly personalize your direct marketing emails, otherwise you are just “spraying and praying.” (I don’t and my DEM income alone has topped the $2 million dollar mark.)
…don’t do too many auditions on the Pay2Plays (I do as many as I can get my hands on.)
…don’t practice your auditioning skills on P2Ps because you will get blackballed (Not true.)
…determine a specific niche/genre of VO and then get specific coaching and demos (I’ve always painted a broad stroke in my VO career, allowing the market to determine where I best fit, and I will always take anything that comes in the door.)
The NAVA survey reports that almost 50% of VO actors make $10K or less per year. At least some industry experts say that is normal. I don’t think VO-land has to be this way.
As a competitive person I want to make as much money as possible (because I am in business and businesses exist to make money), so on one hand, I am glad for the hamster-wheel spinning the industry is doing. But it also saddens me to see such a pathetic and paltry success rate in VO.
My humble opinion is that it doesn’t have to be this way!
*Just a quick sidenote: Recently, I have heard a few industry “experts” somewhat cryptically say some things that might give me a little hope that they may be changing their tune a bit. Time will tell.
