How to Start a Voice-Over Service

Part 1 - How to start a Voice-Over Service business - Background

A voice-over business provides custom recordings for clients based on a diverse set of needs. The business works well as an offline as well as online service. Your clients may need voice-over work for many different things. These include movies of varying lengths, presentations, video games, and various other services. The ability to operate the business fully online if you so choose makes this an attractive business with potentially very low investment and overhead.

Our guide is in 3 parts:

• Part 1 - How to start a Voice Over business - Background
• Part 2 - Our planner tool to see if this idea is the right fit for you
• Part 3 - Action plan to get started

What are the costs involved in opening a voice-over service?

One of the best ways to keep your costs down when starting this business is to create a home studio. If you have space in your own home, you can create such a studio for $5,000 or less. This cost assumes you already have a computer and merely have to purchase things like professional recording and editing software, a pop filter, a microphone, and an audio interface. If you purchase a separate computer for the office, you should budget $2,000 for this purchase. You may want to professionally soundproof your studio, but this is not necessary to record voice-overs. Beyond the costs of the studio, you may want to budget $2,000 or less for advertising. This includes creating a professional webpage and social media presence as well as some modest local advertising via radio and newspaper. If you wish to lease a separate building to create your office, these opening and ongoing costs can go up dramatically: even a small studio can easily cost $30,000 a year to rent, and for the money, will likely not provide a significant improvement in quality over a home studio.

What are the ongoing expenses for a voice-over service?

One of the best features of a voice-over business is that there are almost no ongoing expenses. Once you have your equipment in place and are working in a home studio, you should not have to upgrade for years, nor will you be paying a monthly lease and utilities. You may choose to spend $500-$1000 a month on traditional advertisements, but once you have demos in place on your website, most of your pitching to potential clients will occur online, and will cost nothing except $250 a year or less on website hosting charges.

Who is the target market?

Despite the possible diversity of your work, your best clients will likely be mid- to large-size businesses. This is because such organizations will typically be in need of training videos for their many employees, and such businesses are likely to become a steady source of revenue for you.

How does a voice-over service make money?

On the most basic level, a voice-over business makes money by charging clients to record voice-over material. It is up to you and your business whether you wish to charge by words read, hours recording, or simply charge for entire projects based on their size.

How much can you charge customers?

How much you can charge is typically based on the exact services offered. For instance, you may charge between $250-500 to record an hour of a lecture or other educational presentation in which you are doing simple narration. That price may jump to between $1000 and $2000 per hour of recorded presentations, training videos, and so on. You will typically bill clients by the hour, but different projects will be divvied up differently: one hour may cover a single lengthy lecture, but it could cover dozens of short instructional videos. In some cases, you may be re-recording what someone else has already recorded, meaning you will be doing some transcribing as well. Remember to anticipate the non-recording time (such as reading, transcribing, editing, and so on) that goes into each recording session and price your services accordingly.

How much profit can a voice-over service make?

The exact profit you can make with this business is up to how much you charge and how much work you get. For instance, there are instances of extreme profit such as a woman who makes a minimum of $9,000 month doing voice-over gigs she finds on the website Fiverr. While you will ideally have steadier clientele and higher-paying gigs, the overall idea is the same: to do as much work as possible for as many clients as you can find. The ability to do this work from home means that you can easily record day and night if you need to, which may just be the key to you turning this into a six-figure job.

How can you make your business more profitable?

Don’t be afraid to actively inquire about voice-over needs at companies that you already do business with, allowing you to leverage a pre-existing relationship. You may also seek businesses putting videos on Youtube that do not have an announcer or narrator—if they have many subscribers and videos, then they have a built-in audience and a built-in need for your services. Finally, don’t underestimate the power of social media—aggressively advertising yourself and networking with others via services like Facebook and Twitter can easily lead to your next big break.

Day-to-Day and Growth

What happens during a typical day at a voice-over service?

Part of any given day for a voice-over business is for you and/or your employees to be providing the voices required based on scripts you have received. Other daily activities include receiving the scripts and interpreting the client’s needs based on that script. Communication with the client before, during, and after the assignment is also crucial to making sure you get it right the first time. Skilled voice-over artists may also spend part of their days practicing different deliveries, intonations, and even accents to ensure that they can provide the whatever voice a client needs.

What are some skills and experiences that will help you build a successful voice-over service?

Any previous voice-acting experience can be helpful when it comes to this job. This may include producing advertisements for TV or radio, or even making your own recordings for Youtube. On top of the voice-acting itself, any experience you may have had in a recording studio can help you know which equipment you need and what kind of setup you will need for your own equipment.

What is the growth potential for a voice-over service?

The growth potential for a voice-over business is good. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics groups voice actors in with the field of acting, which itself should experience a ten percent boost between 2014 and 2024. And, things like the aforementioned training videos will only become more important as more jobs are either outsourced to oversea workers or part-timers as part of the “gig economy,” necessitating clear training videos for new workers who may be unfamiliar with a company.

What are some insider tips for jump starting a voice-over service?

Start networking with local and regional businesses right away in order to start a working relationship with them. Take the time to develop a catchy logo to help you build your brand as you get started. Finally, go for as many kinds of work as you can—you may develop a specialty later, but when starting out, it’s important to explore all of your options.

How and when to build a team

Many voice-over businesses are one-person teams. This is because it helps keep the overhead low and ensures that the business does not have to split any profits that come in. Plus, the ability to work from home means that you can get a lot of work done for many clients on any given day. If, however, you are regularly having to turn down work because of too many existing commitments, you should consider building a team. However, unless they will use your studio or they have their own, keep in mind that building a team will necessitate the extra investment and overhead of leasing a separate business space.

Part 2 - Is a Voice-Over Service business the right fit for you?

Part 3 - Action plan to launch your Voice-Over Service business in 90 days