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When you get a Voice Over job, it's important to know what clarifying questions you should ask the client. In this video, Anne goes over what you should be asking in order to be as professional as possible.
Sound Professional by asking the right questions.
So today I want to discuss the questions that you should be asking your new client when you accept a voiceover job.
So the first thing that I want you to establish or ask your client is, do they have a final script. If they have a final script, could they please send it along so that you can give a more accurate quote and also you know the requirements of the job. So you can tell, especially I do this a lot with medical narration because you never know how difficult those words might be or how much time it might take you to get familiar with the pronunciations. But it doesn't even have to be a medical narration. It could be a live announced job where you have to pronounce a lot of names. So getting that final script can give you a really good idea in terms of the difficulty and the length of time that it's going to take to do that job efficiently and accurately for the client.
So the next thing that is very important to ask the client is to establish if they have a budget already set for the project. And it's important that you ask this question first so that you can get an idea of how to start the negotiation process. They always say that the first person that mentions the number is always the loser. So go ahead and make sure that the client has their budget. So you can get a good idea of how to even begin with quoting the price.
The next thing that is also very important before you can quote that price is usage, where are they going to be using this particular audio, and for how long will they be using it? Again, it will give you a great indication of how to start basing your price. To quote for the client. And again, always refer to the rate guides that are out there. It's always nice to establish that baseline, the GVA rate guides, the gravy for the brain rate guide. There's a lot of great guides out there. Those are the two I recommend so that you can make sure that you are getting paid fairly.
The next thing is: when do you need the copy? When do they need the final audio by? That's also another great question to ask because maybe they need it in a couple of hours. In that case, the price may have to go up for that. A lot of times I'll be making quotes within 24 hours to 48 hours, unless I'm doing, you know, an 11 hour audio book, it's pretty reasonable that I'll be able to get to that job within 24 to 48 hours. And most of my clients, thankfully, don't have a problem with that. If I were doing work in a different genre, like promo, where they need things within a couple of hours, that same day, that would be a different story.
Also, a good question to ask is what is the direction for the read? What are the specs that they're looking for in this particular style? Who is your audience, if it's e-learning do you have a younger audience? Do you have an adult audience? Is it for, you know, corporate people? Corporate buyers? Is it for somebody within the same industry that's very familiar with the topic?
The more information you can get about the intended audience, the better.
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.