- So you've set your voiceover goals for 2022, right?
Right, right?
(ethereal music)
So just in case you haven't done that,
this video is all about that.
And essentially, what I want to do
is bring together two of my previous videos,
one of which was about goal setting
and the other one which was about taking stock
of your voiceover achievements for 2021,
and then use myself as an example
of how I'm going about setting my goals
for this coming year.
Now, the trickiest aspect of this can be,
you don't really know where to start.
Everybody has their own kind of competing goals.
There are loads of posts on it at the moment
on social media, various voiceover provider services
are all about these things.
And you can't really see the wood from the trees.
So I recommend that you have to start with
what your goal is.
You also need to think about
how you would go about achieving that goal.
But the thing that I think that I really kind of missed out
from last year in properly interrogating
was the why, as well.
I think this is of crucial importance
to really determine whether or not
a goal actually works for you personally,
or whether or not you've just taken it
from someone else's goal list
and assumed it into your own business
rather than really properly interrogating it.
So it's about the what, it's about the how,
but it's also crucially about the why,
and this is what's gonna be able to make you
to narrow down your options into something
that is actually feeling possible to you
in this coming year,
as opposed to something that is overwhelming.
So to get onto the resolution aspect of this,
the first thing that I really recommend
is that you brainstorm everything.
But you brainstorm everything
with three major sectors in mind.
So the first one is going to be the technical side.
The technical side may be equipment,
it may be investment in your space,
but it's to do with your recording environment,
the process of recording from a technical side.
So equipment, all of that kind of thing.
The second area to really kind of focus on
is on the performance side.
So that could be working with particular coaches
in particular genres.
But then that also goes towards the actual demo production
that you might be involved
if you actually want to showcase your work in that respect.
There's the technical side and there's the performance side,
and then there's also the marketing/employment side.
So this is to do with
what are your inbound marketing streams?
What are your outbound marketing streams?
Inherently, that's social media,
as well as any direct marketing that you do.
And then on top of that,
it's also what agents are you represented by?
How often are you auditioning?
Are you auditioning through production rosters?
Are you using pay-to-plays?
And if so, how regularly you are auditioning,
all of that kind of thing.
So we've got those three rough areas
from which to start with.
The next stage is to make sure
that you have taken stock of this year, 2021,
to see what targets that you've set,
whether or not you managed to action them.
And then also to interrogate why.
So when I look back,
I'm not gonna try and repeat everything
that's already in that pre-existing video.
But when I look back, obviously there are lots of things
that I'm very proud to have been able to achieve.
So for example, my income target,
I didn't hit, but I came very close to hitting
in terms of working more in games, or audio books as well.
That was very successful.
I managed to get this home studio built,
which has made me have to worry a lot less
about the technical side of things.
And I've also managed to formalise my coaching offering.
I've managed to work with a marketing company
specifically on defining what my marketing strategies are.
And I've also managed to create another skillshare course,
which is very, very good
and very well-regarded and completely free
if you sign up for a trial, just saying.
But there were also some things
that I completely dropped, completely failed on.
And again, this comes back to not having
really interrogated the why enough.
So for example, I had this whole idea
that I would create a kind of marketing pack for myself
in order that I could, I don't know,
get more kind of interviews or appear on podcasts
or anything else like that.
Because there wasn't a really clear why behind that,
other than I'd heard a few other people do it,
that never really kind of came together
in any way, shape or form, or more specifically,
also with working on US general American accents,
it's something that I'd set up as wanting to revisit
because I'd done a lot of it
as a trained actor before previously
and a lot of people say it's a very, very good idea,
but it never became a priority for me
because I just didn't encounter that many castings
where it was really an issue.
And increasingly, as well, with people looking for
really authentic accents,
I kind of used it as a bit of an excuse
because my why wasn't strong enough in the first place
to not even begin touching that.
So I'm not saying that's not something
that I'm gonna potentially focus on in the new year,
but I need to come up with a strong enough why
in order to be able to justify that being on my goals list.
Okay, so oriented around those three different areas,
you brainstorm everything that you think of,
anything that pops into your mind
that you could possibly think of as a goal.
Don't try and qualify it in any way, shape or form,
just put it down there and attach it
to one of those three spheres.
And then from that, you need to focus on the why,
and this will be a natural process of elimination
before you then get into the nitty gritty of the how.
There's no point in wasting lots of time on the how
if the why isn't strong enough.
It's like any kind of acting objective exercise,
if your want isn't strong enough,
then the scene won't be successful
because you won't really feel you'll need it.
So there won't be that tension of drama.
It's exactly the same in terms of your motivation.
If these are gonna be goals
that you're gonna be pursuing for an entire 12 months,
if the why isn't strong enough, you won't do it.
So if I look at some of the goals
that I'm contemplating in 2022,
one example is documentary work.
So that's the, what it is.
I wanna work more in documentaries
and long-form duration and that type of thing.
The why is because I've always had a real interest in that
from David Attenborough and his nature narrations,
having a huge particular effect on me,
and then more kind of historical narration as well.
I've been really, really interested in.
And so, therefore, once I've got those two as established,
that's a very positive thing,
then I can go into the, how could I possibly do that?
And that would be by working with a coach
that I think is well-respected.
So maybe doing some research on that.
Working with them with the aim of then getting a demo.
And then when you have that demo, well, what can you do?
Yes, you can put it on pay-to-play sites.
Yes, you can give it to your agents,
but it would then be working
in terms of my marketing as well
so that I could identify specific leads
that I could reach out to directly
and then incorporate into my overall
kind of direct marketing strategy as a result.
Another what that I'm really contemplating
is that I want to consolidate my income.
Before I get into the how I wanna do that,
I really need to think about the why.
And obviously, it's because more money
is always great, right?
Maybe?
But the why is actually
because I wanna be able to take some time off from voiceover
without massive feelings of guilt.
So that's quite a strong activator for me
in terms of a life goal, as opposed to a business goal,
to take more time off without going, oh my God,
my business is gonna plummet as a result.
And then that justifies very much more strongly the,
how I want to go about that.
So that's making sure that I am actioning
all of the marketing work
that I explored with Knowlton Marketing
when I hired them as a consultant for my business.
In terms of inbound work and outbound work,
it's about making sure that the workflow
of my content creation is as streamlined as possible
so that I can be consistent,
so that I can do batch contenting.
It's led to some outsourcing.
It's why I've got a virtual assistant
for my outreach to help with that.
Now, throughout this process,
I'm not saying that the why
has to always be ridiculously strong.
It's good to have some speculative ones in there
that you can subsequently kind of quantify.
So for example, with me, one of my goals
that I'm contemplating is looking into
the whole dubbing and ADR world,
'cause it's something that I haven't experienced.
I don't know whether I'd love it or hate it
because I've never even done a workshop on it
or tried it out myself.
So I know that I wanna go about doing that.
What's the why?
Because it seems to be
such a booming industry at this moment.
So do I know whether or not I'd like it?
Do I know whether or not it's a genre
that would work for me?
I'm not gonna know that
until I explore it in some kind of way.
And so, therefore, we go down to the how,
and that's by seeing what workshops are available,
seeing if there's any resources that I'm already paying for,
from my memberships to the VoiceOver Network
or to Gravy For The Brain,
or other organisations are available
and whether or not they have some resources that I can use,
whether or not the friends or people that I know
who already work in those spheres,
that I can potentially talk to
to see what the whole process is like.
Once you've gone through this entire process,
you should have a bunch of ideas
that you've brainstormed out,
and then they will have automatically
kind of funnelled down quite considerably
as soon as you've analysed the why.
And I recommend even using kind of different colours.
So maybe all of the ones
that you've brainstormed are in blue,
but when they actually qualify to the next stage,
then maybe you put the why in red.
And then if they're ones that you actually want to spend
considerable time on thinking about the how,
then you put them in another colour, like purple for example.
And that means that they are definitely gonna be
priorities for you.
And obviously, if they chime with you
and you're more excited about them,
then that's obviously a very good sign.
But again, one of the useful benefits
of having those three areas kind of like mapped out
is to make sure that there's some form of balance
so that you're not focusing purely,
always on the performance side
and not at all on the marketing side, because yes,
it's great that you focus on your skills,
especially when you're starting out.
But if you want to actually make it function as a business,
you need to spend at least as much time
on the marketing side, on getting auditions,
on getting those relationships, and on the technical side.
For me, I know that the technical side,
thanks to having invested in the studio
and making it such a priority in 2021,
is less of an issue for me.
So it's gonna be focusing more on the performance side
and much more on the kind of marketing side,
marketing to new areas as well.
But again, it's about kind of forming a real process,
not by trying to get it right, right from the get go,
but by literally copying everybody else's ideas
first and foremost, having them all out in front of you,
and then seeing what speaks to you.
I hope this video has been of some use to you.
And I wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year,
regardless of what the COVID restrictions may or may not be
by the time that we get there.
Thank you so much for your support for the channel, as ever.
Please do like, subscribe.
Please do tell other people
that you think might enjoy this content about this content,
as it would mean a great deal.
And thank you, as ever,
for your time and support and lovely comments.
I will be taking a break for a week just to kind of revise
where I wanna take this channel next.
And I hope that I'll be able to bring you all along with me.
Thanks so much.
And I look forward to seeing you next year.