Voice actors are notoriously awful at describing our own jobs. And if that made your sphincter pucker, trust me, it's not just you. Years ago, when I was a part-time voice actor doing the grind on nights and weekends, and then the day job during the day, I went to a big industry mixer here in Richmond. I remember uh squeezing past a crowded bar, I remember it was summer, I remember sweating through my shirt. And I remember most vividly going through my mental Rolodex of credits. Should I talk about the car dealership spots? What about the indie documentary? Does anybody even give a shit? I'm there for about a half an hour, and eventually one of the producers comes up and s asks me the most predictable question in the history of networking. So what do you do? I'm a voice actor. Oh, so cool. Uh radio, cartoons? Now that should have been the opening, but instead I spent the next Thirty to forty seconds throwing every possible type of voiceover I could ever do at him. Commercials, corporate narration, training videos, character work, maybe an audio book or two. Whatever might possibly convince this poor man that I was a working pro. And the conversation pretty much died right there. He nodded and mumbled something about refilling his drink and off he went. And I couldn't blame him. I told him what I called myself, but I didn't give him any reason whatsoever to To remember me. That was a problem. And it's a problem a shitload of voice actors have. We invest thousands in this business learning how to break down copy and work a mic and edit audio and in producing our demos. And then somebody asks us what we do and we get a case of verbal diarrhea. I'm a voice actor. I do commercial stuff, audiobooks, e-learning, narration, you know, a little bit of everything. Now technically, those answers might be correct, but they're safe. Vague and worst of all, completely forgettable. Now before we get into it, let's introduce our free source of the week, our free resource of the week, and this week it's the voice actor's guide to positioning against AI, but it works for positioning in general as well. It's a step-by-step framework to figure out what makes you the obvious choice, a fill-in-a-blank formula to write your own powerful positioning statement, real-world examples from different VO genres, and a self-guided worksheet to refine and implement your messaging fast. It's a free download. The link is in the description and show notes. Most people outside of our industry don't even really know what a voice actor does. You tell somebody you work in voiceover and they'll get some sort of vague idea about cartoons or a guy yelling about a mattress sale on the radio or some sort of nebulous idea about podcasting. They don't automatically picture the tutorial video for their project management software. They don't think about the training course they had to complete at work, the explainer video on a medical company's homepage, or the pre-show announcement at a live corporate event. More importantly, though, they don't know what kind of voiceover work you do best, who hires you, or why somebody would choose you over the 10,000 other people out there who call themselves professional voice actors. And that isn't the prospects. Problem or fault, it's our job to make what we do easy to understand. Clients don't buy what they don't understand, and people don't refer people unless they've got an easy way to describe what they do. If your entire explanation to somebody is I'm a voice actor, then you're offloading all the work on the other person. And they have to figure out where you fit, what problems you might solve, and if they know anybody who can use what you do. Most people won't bother, not because they're jerks uh or because they're being antisocial. It's just because they don't care that much and you're making them work too hard. And this is one of the biggest gaps in what has been traditional voiceover training. We're taught mic technique and how to edit and how to record, how to break down a script and inhabit a character, and all of that Absolutely matters, but very few people are taught how to define and defend and describe their place in the market. So they default to listing genres. Well, I do commercials, corporate narration, medical narration, technical narration, audiobooks, promos, inshow, documentary, and anything else people will pay me for. But that doesn't position you as versatile. It makes you sound like you haven't figured out where you belong. Your marketing message isn't supposed to be some sort of inventory laundry list of every possible service. You could provide. It's your job to give your buyer a clear, compelling reason to hire you. About a year after that awkward ass networking chat that I told you about, I attended another event and I had a hell of a lot better idea about my messaging. This time, when somebody asked what I did, I didn't just give them my job title. I told them I help companies sound confident and trustworthy in onboarding tutorials and training videos. And they need dry material to feel clear and human. That's my specialty. And her response wasn't just another vague question about cartoons. She immediately connected to something that I did to her own world. She goes, wait, so you do explainer videos for corporations? We're launching an app next month. Now we had a conversation. Now she understood where I fit. Now she could picture the kind of work I did and how it would apply to what she does. And she could picture. Hiring me to do it. That's what clear positioning does. Now, this is the part where somebody usually says, Well, if I specialize, then won't I lose work? Aren't I boxing myself in? No. You become easier to remember. Choosing a clear market position doesn't mean you do it to the exclusion of every other kind of work. The voiceover police are not gonna come kicking in your booth door one day because you branded yourself as a corporate narration. uh actor and you then took a commercial. Your positioning is just the front door to your business. It's not a eight by eight prison cell. Think about the way that referrals in the real world actually happen. A friend of yours, a family member, a former colleague, somebody needs a voice for a financial training program. Now who are they more likely to remember? Somebody that says, well, I do all kinds of voiceover. Or the person that says, I help financial companies make training videos clear without making employees want to stick ice picks in their ears. That second message sticks because it gives the other person something concrete to hold on to. It identifies one type of client, one type of project, and one problem to be solved. That is the basic branding equation. What do you do? Who do you do it for? What? What kind of problem do you solve? You might say I voice warm, human e-learning videos for education companies who want learners to stay engaged. Or I help technology companies turn complex products into explainer videos that Are clear and easy to understand. Or I create quirky, memorable characters for indie game developers who don't have a big Hollywood budget but need big personality. None of those messages claim that the voice actor in question can only do one thing. They just lead with something specific enough to be understood and remembered. Now your own version of this should come from actual evidence, not some. branding exercise that you pulled out of your ass because somebody said that there's good money in healthcare work. Look at the projects that you've done. What has worked well for you? What's brought out your best work? Which clients have been the happiest? Which words do people use to describe you when they hear your work? Where do your experience and interests and natural credibility overlap with actual market need? Pay attention to patterns. If Several different clients say to you that you make complicated material feel conversational and easy. That's a useful thing to know. If producers constantly hire you for grounded, trustworthy reads. That's useful. If your own background gives you a natural advantage and credibility in finance, education, uh, technology, that's also very useful to know. You're not trying to manufacture some fake specialty. You're just trying to identify a real authentic advantage that you already have and explain it in a in a language and a way that makes a buyer immediately understand that. Then look at the market. Search LinkedIn. Pay attention to the kinds of companies that buy the kinds of voiceover that you want to do. Pay attention to production company websites and agency rosters. Learn what those buyers call their product, what their language is, what they care about, and maybe most importantly, what makes their jobs really, really hard. And this is where a lot of voice actors get it ass backwards. They build their messaging around how they describe themselves and their voice and their work and their approach and not on how the client describes the problem and the need. Your clients most likely are not searching for a dynamic, versatile voice actor with a studio quality sound, but they might need a somebody who can make a technical product sound simple. Keep employees engaged and attentive. attentive during mandatory training or deliver a mountain of medical narration technically accurate and on schedule. Talk about that. This whole video is not about just sounding clever at networking events. A clear message improves just about every part of your voiceover marketing. It gives your website a purpose rather than just a a hat rack for your Headshot and sixteen demos. It gives you something meaningful and substantive to say in your LinkedIn headline. It helps you write your outreach emails so that they sound like they were intended for a specific buyer, not just every bloke with producer in their title. And it also makes referrals one hell of a lot easier. Clients talk to one another, producers recommend talent, friends talk to friends, but people are far. More likely to recommend you when they easily understand what you do and what you're good at. you need somebody who can make dense financial training sound clear and human and approachable? I know exactly who you call. Now that's a referral with traction. Once people associate you with a particular kind of result, you become the go to person when that need arises. You are no longer One more generic voice in the generic sea of voice actors. You occupy a little bit of real estate in somebody else's brain, and that's valuable territory. Clear positioning also changes the way you show up for yourself in your own business. When you're grounded in whom you serve and why you're valuable, then sales conversations feel less like you're trying to convince somebody to hire you. You start becoming more selective and more focused about what you do because you're not trying to shoehorn what you do and the description thereof into every possible gig posting. You get better at recognizing clients who value what you do, and you get more comfortable with saying no to jobs and clients that just aren't a good fit. It doesn't happen overnight, it doesn't happen b just because you watched this video or you wrote one clever sentence in some branding workshop somewhere. It takes time and it takes practice. Say your message out loud. Record it over and over again. Practice it on somebody who knows nothing about voiceover. If their eyes roll back in their head or they stare at you blankly, or they ask you to do some silly cartoon voices, then your message probably needs a little more work. Use it in conversations and notice what happens. Which versions strike up more conversations? Which spark more questions? When does somebody immediately make the connection in their head with a Person or a project that they know about. Pay attention to the parts that make people lean in. Because those reactions are real market feedback and they're a hell of a lot more valuable than spending another two hours going, well, should I say conversational or warm? Then when you get the message worked out, make sure it appears throughout your business. LinkedIn, social media posts, your website. Your email outreach, your demos. If your homepage says you specialize in medical narration and then your demo features a monster truck commercial, well now you've given the viewer user a puzzle to solve. Buyers have enough puzzles. Don't volunteer to become another one. And I know, I hear it, I get it. A lot of voice actors push back against clear positioning because of the fear of getting boxed in. But that fear is misplaced at the wrong problem. Being too clearly understood is never going to keep you from booking, but being indistinguishable from everybody else, that'll keep you from booking. Once people know you for something, then you can expand your brand. In fact, having an established credibility in one area often leads to work in other areas. A corporate narration client might hire you for a commercial. A software company might need An explainer video or even live announce for a corporate event. A producer who trusts you in one genre may simply drag you along into another. But first, they need a reason to notice you and to hire you the first time. Owning a lane doesn't mean pretending you don't have range, it means just leading with your strongest and most relevant value rather than trying to. Cram your whole damn resume into every introduction. And the flip side of that coin is it also means being willing to acknowledge what you don't do and don't do well. If somebody needs a uh classic movie trailer read and that's not in your wheelhouse, don't be afraid to say so. Refer them to somebody else that you know is right for that job, and you'll get credit from both people for connecting them. And that kind of honesty and transparency is. That doesn't make you look in some way limited. That makes you look like a professional who understands the problem to be solved and gives a damn about the outcome, whether you can solve it or not. The right clients don't need you to be capable of doing everything and solving every problem under the sun. They just need you to be really good at the thing that they need solved right now. So if you're Scrambling for gigs and watching other voice actors getting hired because they're getting remembered and you're not, then take a good hard look at the way you're describing what you do, who you do it for, and the problem you solve. Identify what you do best, the folks that are most likely to get value from that, and the problem that you solve and the result that you achieve by doing what you do well. Then turn that into a short, concise Natural, authentic explanation of what you do without sounding like you swallowed a marketing textbook. Practice it until it feels authentically you. Try it out in conversations. Pay attention to what people understand, what they don't understand, what they digest, and what they repeat to other people. Then take that message and make it prolific. Website, email, social media, demos, any marketing messaging you put out there. VoiceOver coaching, in my view, shouldn't stop at what happens behind the mic. If you want to do this for a living, if you want to become full-time in voiceover, then you need to understand positioning, client need, the language they use, targeting, messaging, and the real business problems that your work helps solve for them. I'm a voice actor, might be true. But it ain't much of a calling card. Give people something worth remembering. Better yet, give them a clear, concise reason to know exactly when and why to hire you. Now, if this video helped you, if you think it will help other voice actors, please hit the like button, the subscribe button if you're watching us on YouTube, if you're listening to us on the audio podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. We would love a follow, perhaps a review if you're feeling especially kind and generous that day. Or Even if you don't like the podcast, give us a review. We're here to exchange opinions, ideas, techniques, strategies so that we can build stronger businesses and have a better, stronger voiceover industry for ourselves, our clients, and our families who we love and take care of. Thanks so much for your support, and we'll see you back here again real soon.