Well, I got to admit, I’m hearing a lot of VO folks saying that business is slow.  Yup, me too, except this month, I got lucky with one of my clients who sent me enough scripts to shake the bank account into an unexplored arena and I am so very grateful.  I feel blessed when the planets align and I am able to breath a bit more comfortably.

We must be aware of good times and bad.  Whenever it get a bit sparse, use that time to your advantage.  Send out your Thank You cards to your latest clients who were smart enough to use your talent recently.  Perfect timing.

Or super-serve that new studio who is using you for the first time and hopes to complete his project and make his client happy.  I just did that this morning in a session.  They were looking for another style of read that would please their people.  Our success is based on making all the clients, of those clients, of their clients happy. Follow?  Yes, it all trickles downhill. And, it begins with our ability to give them the best that we can as voice actors.  In fact, they received exactly what they asked for, but their client wasn’t totally pleased.  So another session was scheduled to make their client happy.  Not only did they receive another read, as they requested, I gave them a variation of friendly and conversational, corporate, another not sell-y or pushy, but prideful. plus a backup version with minor little personality gestures to make it special.  They were very pleased.

Going the extra mile to release your inner being and to show your versatility will come back in spades.  Producers remember who makes them sound and look good. Especially with a new talent that can do it again and again and doesn’t act like they are doing you a favor by hiring them.  Yes, they are still out there.  But they are thinning out a bit.

Marketing, re-branding and basic communication is the key to utilizing this “extra” time we have during slow periods.  Thank God for our foundation clients that use us on a regular basis.  They keep the bread on the table.  But in order to get the butter, one has to be looking down the road and adding in new clients and sprinkling in those special gigs that only come to us when we have been available at the right time and looking in the right direction.

What do you do when your biz is slow?  I’d be anxious to hear your insight.