Should I niche up or do all types of voiceover?

This may be one of the easiest blog posts I could ever write because it truly comes down to the following question: What are you willing to let someone else get paid for instead of you?

Yep.

That’s it. That’s the post…just kidding.

What inspired you to begin this journey?

Were you watching Family Guy or South Park and started thinking to yourself that it sounded like great fun? Maybe Character voiceover is something that has intrigued you since a child?

Maybe one day you were sitting through another Code of Conduct module at the office and thought to yourself, “Why don’t they just pay me to record this?” Perhaps eLearning and corporate explainer narration is your forte!

Maybe you just sat on the train or bus ride into work one day listening to an audiobook so captivating that it made you wonder what it would be like to become an audiobook narrator.

The thing is that MANY voiceover narrators and actors do all three of those types of voiceover and more!

Why?

Many narrators branch into other forms of acting or vice versa. For example, have you ever wanted to hear Hugh Jackman acting out a children’s story? I kid you not! Head to Audible and search him.

The thing is that many of the abilities to tell a story are useful in other forms of voiceover. When you limit yourself and say that you are only going to do voiceover jobs where you are the person prompting people to “press 1 for English” for a company phone IVR system then well…you’re short changing yourself the opportunity to either upsell to that client or giving away that particular job to someone who is willing to do both.

Voiceover is competitive. Knowing yourself and your strengths, from a marketing purpose, is extremely important but flat saying no to an opportunity because “I’m a corporate narrator, not a cartoon character” is going to cost you more often than it’s going to help you.

We all have strengths and we all have things we can do to get stronger. It’s like going to the gym. You may be great at the bench press but your rowing technique is shot. Does that mean you neglect your back muscles completely? Don’t work those out at all? Or should you do your best to be well rounded?

I believe in this case it may be time to flex some of those VO muscles and start working out!!