Many people become stuck in their voiceover business. They work their way up to a certain level, and then they stop there. They believe they’ve hit the top.
You’ll never hit the top. You can always work to grow your business.
This is the great thing about running a business. While many people believe they can only charge certain rates for their voiceover services – that is not the case.
Your business is yours. You’ve experience that others do not have, so you have a right to charge whatever you want to charge. You base your charges on your work and not on other people’s work.
What does this mean?
You can increase your voiceover income virtually overnight. It’s likely you have been working for a few years or more. Every year, you gain experience which in turn makes you a better voiceover. You should charge for that increase in knowledge and skills. If you don’t raise your rates every year, you have been missing a better voiceover income.
Right now, look at your current rates and increase them 20%. That 20% is your raise.
The next thing you need to do is head out and start looking for clients. As you pitch to them with your demos, let them know your new rates. Your old rates are gone. Those are only good for clients you’re already working with on projects.
Does this mean you can’t increase your rates for current clients? No. However, it’s not good to raise rates for projects you’re already working on that you’ve already agreed on a rate. If the client has a new project for you, that’s when you can use your new rates.
As you can see, if you’re able to land a client tomorrow with your new rate, you have increased your voiceover income easily. If you boost your marketing and find many more clients, your business could soar.
Final Tip on Voiceover Income
Do not get ahead of yourself, though. You’ll likely be tempted to continue to increase your rates as you get more and more gigs. While this is not such a bad thing, you could end up pricing yourself out. Your experience has to go along with your rates. If you only have one year of experience and your rates are way above someone who has been in the business for ten years, you’ll likely end up losing some gigs that would have been really good for you.
Take it slow, and soon, you’ll be charging the rates that will make you proud and happy.