VO BOSS
BOSSes Anne Ganguzza and Jennifer Sims, a voice actor, coach, and self-proclaimed "100% certified smarty pants," connect to explore the intricate layers of the voiceover industry. Listen in as we unpack Jennifer's unique journey, shaped by diverse experiences in acting, producing, and voiceover, offering a candid look into the crucial insights needed to navigate challenges and build a truly thriving business in today's landscape. Listeners will discover the essential role of professionalism and adaptability in connecting with clients, gain understanding of the industry's evolving demands, and...
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Are you looking to take control of your financial destiny as a voiceover artist and business owner? In this insightful episode of the VO BOSS Podcast, Bosses Anne Ganguzza and the lovely Danielle Famble delve into the critical importance of understanding your hourly rate across all your income streams. They share practical strategies for calculating your worth, optimizing your schedule, and confidently negotiating your fees to build a thriving and sustainable voiceover business. 00:03 - Speaker 1 (Announcement) There's a voice revolution going on between podcasts, smart speakers, voice...
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BOSSes Anne Ganguzza and Lau Lapides dive into how to cultivate hope and resilience in the ever-evolving voiceover industry. Their inspiring conversation explores discovering your strengths, overcoming challenges, and taking action to achieve your dreams. They emphasize the importance of self-love, nurturing your community, and understanding your true purpose to remain joyful and hopeful. Anne and Lau share practical strategies for educating yourself on industry trends, adapting your marketing approaches to reach diverse clients, and even exploring self-production to build your skills...
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BOSSes Anne Ganguzza and Tom Dheere dive into the essential digital toolkit for today's voiceover professionals. Their lively conversation spotlights practical solutions for safeguarding valuable audio, effortlessly showcasing your work, and leveraging the power of AI to streamline your workflow. They unveil their go-to platforms for reliable cloud backups, easy video conversion for portfolio building, and AI assistants that can help with everything from crafting professional communications to generating content ideas. By sharing their tried-and-true tech arsenal, Anne and Tom empower voice...
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BOSSes Anne Ganguzza and George the Tech unveil a powerful collaboration designed to equip voiceover professionals with essential technical prowess. Their discussion highlights the evolution of VO BOSS to include comprehensive tech support, recognizing that pristine audio and a smoothly running studio are fundamental pillars of your voiceover business success. They introduce the new VIP + Tech membership tiers, which offer direct access to George's expertise through monthly meetups, personalized sound checks, and an innovative AI-powered knowledge base, the "George the Tech Bot." By...
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BOSSes Anne Ganguzza and Danielle Famble tackle the often-overlooked financial realities of building a successful voiceover career. Their candid conversation reveals that achieving "overnight success" is typically the result of years of dedicated work and strategic sacrifices. They emphasize that time is a crucial financial asset and discuss the importance of making deliberate choices about where to invest it, alongside monetary resources. Anne and Danielle share personal experiences of delaying immediate wants to prioritize long-term business growth, highlighting the need for patience and a...
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BOSSes Anne Ganguzza and Lau Lapides delve into the expanding role of on-camera presence for voice actors. Their conversation highlights how versatility across different media is increasingly vital in the entertainment industry. They explore the shift from on-camera work being a side hustle to becoming a fundamental aspect of a successful voiceover career. Anne and Lau emphasize the power of authentic connection, both vocally and visually, and discuss the importance of building supportive online communities. They also touch on practical aspects of self-presentation, including beauty, fashion,...
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BOSSes Anne Ganguza and Tom Dheere examine the state of the voiceover industry a few months into 2025. They discuss the direct impact of political and economic events on booking trends and content. The conversation explores how corporate messaging is adapting to cultural and policy changes, the ongoing role of authenticity, and the evolving, perhaps less threatening, landscape of AI. Ultimately, they offer a message of adaptation, education, and resilience for voice actors navigating the current climate. 00:03 - Anne (Host) Hey bosses, are you new to voiceover and not sure where to...
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BOSSes Anne Ganguza and Tolulope Kolade, a leading voice from Nigeria's vibrant voiceover scene, connect to explore the sonic tapestry of Africa's storytelling. They unpack Tolulope experiences building a career and community within a dynamic market, offering a window into the unique challenges and triumphs of voice acting on the continent. Listeners will discover the crucial role of genuine expression in connecting with audiences, gain understanding of the industry's growth in Africa, and appreciate the power of shared narratives across borders. Anne and Tolulope also discuss practical...
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BOSSes Anne Ganguza and Andy Roth delve into the nuances of voice acting from the perspective of a seasoned casting director. They explore strategies for success in auditions, emphasizing the importance of authenticity and making genuine choices. Listeners will gain insights into the casting process, understanding the client's vision, and the significance of following instructions. The episode addresses the impact of AI on the industry while reinforcing the irreplaceable value of human connection and unique interpretation. Anne and Andy also discuss practical advice for creating compelling...
info_outlineAre you looking to take control of your financial destiny as a voiceover artist and business owner? In this insightful episode of the VO BOSS Podcast, Bosses Anne Ganguzza and the lovely Danielle Famble delve into the critical importance of understanding your hourly rate across all your income streams. They share practical strategies for calculating your worth, optimizing your schedule, and confidently negotiating your fees to build a thriving and sustainable voiceover business.
00:03 - Speaker 1 (Announcement)
There's a voice revolution going on between podcasts, smart speakers, voice assistants, social audio. All these things are here to stay and there's more to come. What VO BOSS recognizes are the shifts in the industry, and they always get experts on to explain what's next and how talents can stand out.
00:25 - Anne (Host)
Hi, guys, Anne Ganguzza here. Are you looking to discover true happiness and fulfillment? My coaching services are here to help you find joy, overcome challenges, and live your best life. Let's take that first step towards happiness today. Visit anneganguzza.com to get started.
00:45 - Speaker 3 (Announcement)
It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a VO BOSS. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.
01:04 - Anne (Host)
Hey, hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS Podcast and the Boss Money Talk Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am here again with the lovely Danielle Famble. Hey.
01:15 - Danielle (Guest)
Anne, so happy to be back. How are you?
01:18 - Anne (Host)
Oh, I'm doing good, Danielle. What are we talking about this morning? I have no clue.
01:24 - Danielle (Guest)
Honestly, same. I really have no clue, but we look good and we are here to talk about money, so we can figure it out.
01:32 - Anne (Host)
There we go. Well, you know, it's so interesting because if I don't schedule it in my calendar, right, it just, at this point, my calendar, I live by my calendar. I know I've mentioned that to you before, like, literally hourly. I schedule my time hourly, and it's funny because sometimes I have my students that want to get in coaching sessions with me and they get frustrated because my schedule is booked up, but if I don't put it on my schedule, like, it just doesn't get done.
01:57
And interestingly enough, my schedule has a lot to do with the hours I work and the amount of money I make per hour, and I think that it's so important because I can only schedule my coaching services for a certain amount of time a week.
02:12 - Danielle (Guest)
Right.
02:12 - Anne (Host)
Because at other times, I have to make sure I'm allocating that to my other income streams, right, and so I think it's always important to know, as a voice talent and as a business owner, what is your time worth per hour? Like, what is your hourly rate? How much money are you making per hour? Because that can tell you like, oh, I should spend a certain amount of time coaching and a certain amount doing voiceover, hopefully, because that's the value that we don't know. Like, that's not standard, we can't depend on that. There we go.
02:39 - Danielle (Guest)
When you know, like, your hourly rate, like what you're charging for, what you're bringing in, then you actually can figure out how you can grow it. So maybe you grow it by increasing your rate, or maybe you grow it by shifting your focus in those higher hourly buckets. So if it's a different genre or things that you're doing, maybe your day job pays you more per hour than a particular side hustle that you have.
03:02 - Anne (Host)
Oh, good point, yeah.
03:02 - Danielle (Guest)
You know how to spend your time. I am also very guilty of being the person who always needs to look at my calendar to figure out what I'm doing, because if it is not on my calendar, it's probably not getting done and probably got lost somewhere in the shuffle. But yeah, I mean, knowing how much your time is worth and how much you should be getting paid for working an hour is so helpful to be able to financially plan for what it is that you're wanting to do and how much money you're trying to bring in.
03:33 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, and as we entered into this podcast, going, hmm, what are we going to talk about? Had I not scheduled that time into deciding? Here's my schedule, right? So I need to schedule time to prepare my schedule, or to prepare, like, the topics we're talking about. Luckily, though, Danielle, you're just so easy to talk to. We can figure it out on the fly.
03:50
We can just spin off on, yeah, which is really good. But yeah, I found that it's so important. What are your highest paying income streams? Right, and so for me, voiceover, right, voiceover, depending, but what type of voiceover, right, exactly, it can be genre specific.
04:04
So that would be like voiceover commercial, right, it's the shortest amount of time that pays the highest. Next in line voiceover wise might be medical narration, right, because I have a higher rate. But then you've got to figure out, well, what's the frequency? Now, wouldn't it be great? I think a lot of times when people first get into this industry, they think, oh yeah, I want to do commercial work because I get paid the most doing that, or whatever it might be. But it's not every day that you're booking eight national commercials, if only, so you have to figure out the frequency at which that happens.
04:35 - Speaker 3 (Announcement)
Yeah.
04:35 - Anne (Host)
And then schedule accordingly. Like, what do I get paid per hour coaching? What do I get paid per hour doing a demo? So I think that really understanding what your time is worth on an hourly basis and then being able to assemble, right, the optimal schedule that can get you the most.
04:53 - Danielle (Guest)
And also building in times when maybe you're not going for the most amount of money in that time.
05:00 - Anne (Host)
Maybe you're building in rest that I tend to like forget about. It's funny because I will forget to schedule or block a day, like, after a day of travel, right? Because I know that after a day of travel, my time clock is going to be all screwed up, especially in a creative sort of a way. I mean, yes, if a client says to me, can you do a voiceover right now? Yeah, I'll do everything I can to do that. However, getting that rest in so that I can mentally refresh to be the very best version and be more efficient with my time, yes, is absolutely something that you need to take into consideration is scheduling that time and scheduling, believe it or not, travel time. I'm always forgetting about travel time, especially when you have calendar systems that work for you. You can build in your buffer. Like, in between students, I build in a buffer of 10 minutes because, God forbid, once in a while I have to go to the bathroom.
06:20 - Danielle (Guest)
Or like drink a little bit of water, or stand up, or like walk around. You know, you got to be a human being.
06:26 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, exactly. So you have to schedule that time. But I found that I've had to do that and I'm always like, these days it's when I forgot to schedule in time to do this or travel time, or I forgot to schedule a few minutes for me to get back from Pilates class, right? Now, I've actually scheduled time for my health, which I think is so important. My Friday mornings I take two Pilates classes in a row and I can't start my day until a certain time.
06:52 - Danielle (Guest)
Two in a row is wild, and good for you, because, well, one's a stretch class. One is a stretch class.
06:58 - Anne (Host)
So I start off with like an actual Pilates class and the other is a Pilates stretch class, but it's stretching, by the way, can be very painful.
07:04 - Danielle (Guest)
It's really important. It's really important, as you get older, you have to move your body and stretch your body.
07:09 - Anne (Host)
And it's a workout too.
07:10 - Danielle (Guest)
Yeah, that's a hack, by the way, for those of y'all listening, make sure as you're getting older, don't forget to stretch.
07:17 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, I think it's so important that you do physical things and you're physically fit to be your best in the booth too, because that requires mental and physical, believe it or not. I mean, especially when I talk. We've got to talk with our hands, we've got to be in the scene, and so there's a physical element to it. And darn it all, if these booths don't get hot for the most part, unless you've got that booth that has that quiet air conditioning system, which is like, I think that's something that we all as voice actors are like, ah, it's like, if only we could have, you know, and I have a nice ventilation system.
07:50
However, depending on the type of voiceover that I'm doing, I work in a certain size space and I talk, right, and that's energy that's creating, and there has to be an exhaust, right, and if you have an exhaust, then that's like a hole that external noises can come in. So there's always that delicate balance. But I digressed on that tangent. But being fit, I don't get as hot, so it helps me because I can maintain. That's a whole other podcast. But being fit can help you in all aspects of your business.
08:22 - Danielle (Guest)
That's a really important point, because this year I, due to health circumstances, made sure to buffer my time and put into my calendar more time for physical fitness, for going out, just leaving the booth, leaving my apartment, even for walks in the evening, whatever it is.
08:43
I for a long time did not make sure to prioritize that and my health started to suffer. And then my work started to suffer because I wasn't resting. I wasn't able to really show up and be the VO BOSS in the booth that I was wanting to be, because I hadn't prioritized other things that maybe were not bringing in as much financial benefits, but were having huge ramifications in my business, because I had not put the time and the energy into making sure that physically I could stay in tip-top shape. So it's not always about blocking out the time for what's bringing in the money. It's also for making sure that the instrument that we use, our body, our mind, our voice, our instrument, can be as great as it can be, because we have done other things that are not necessarily bringing in financial benefits, but we are taking the time to really like, pour into our instrument and pour into ourselves.
09:38 - Anne (Host)
Well, that's our product, right? So our product, because it's such a personal part of us, I mean, we're not making a physical product necessarily. Obviously, our voice is our product and so everything that goes into having a good voice and being mentally and physically prepared counts. That's got to be put into your hourly time clock for what that is, and I really believe scheduling that time is important. So then, with the hours that you have left, right, what is it that brings you a certain amount of money per hour? And then what is it that you need? So really, I think, if you sit down with like a schedule, right, and just say, all right, here I'm doing auditions, so is auditioning bringing me in money? Right, but maybe booking is bringing me money, and so it's really interesting to figure out, like, what your worth is on an hourly rate when you're deciding upon, should I invest that time in auditioning or should I invest that time in pursuing my coaching, or should I pursue my dream genre? How much time should I allocate to that?
10:39 - Danielle (Guest)
Oh, I love that. I love that because you're making decisions based on data. You're making decisions based on hard numbers, and that makes it a little bit clearer, instead of what you think you should be doing or what you're hearing that other people are doing, you are making decisions, data-based decisions, which is exactly what a VO BOSS, what an entrepreneur, should be doing.
10:58 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, absolutely. So you've got to take the numbers that are certainty, right, and you can guesstimate, like, if you receive jobs, like, I think that's the biggest thing that is out of our control. If we get a job, or you know what I mean, if we book the job, then we need to dedicate the time to do that. So maybe, in terms of how you're growing your business, are you going to do something else on the side, right? How much money will that bring in? It amazes me the amount of students that are coming to me part-time, right, they have a full-time job, that don't know their hourly rate, don't know their hourly rate that they get paid at their corporate job, and I'm like, you really should figure that out, because when you're trying to make those decisions, should I do this full-time, part-time? I mean, there's going to be that transition time where you're going to have to start building up business, building up repeat customers, because those would be the customers that you can depend on. Okay, this income is coming in, so my hourly rate will change for that.
11:50 - Danielle (Guest)
Yeah, and your hourly rate. We've already said this a little bit, but it can be genre specific. Yes, so Maria Pendolino likes to call it your pick up the mic fee. So whatever is like your baseline of what you will go into your studio, turn on your computer and like, do the work. What is that minimum? So you know, actually, if they're falling below your personal minimum pick up the mic fee, then it may not be worth your time. Maybe you can do other things like rest or doing physical fitness, or spending time with your family, or marketing or auditioning or whatever else that you need to be doing. You know the minimum amount that you would like to make her job or just at any moment to bring you into the booth. You know that minimum and then that actually helps you be able to say yes or no to projects as they come along.
12:39
But they are going to be genre specific. The amount of money that I make doing a 15 second national commercial is not going to be the same amount of money that I make when I'm doing an e-learning project, but I do know that the minimum to bring me into this booth to close the door and to like start talking and do what I need to do is X, and if it's not hitting X, then the answer for me probably is going to be no, or I know that I'm saying yes to it given other circumstances, and that's totally fine too.
13:10 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, I may be different right now for you bosses out there that are only concentrating on voiceover, but when you have different avenues and you have different income streams, like, for example, everybody knows, I have the VO BOSS podcast because I'm on it. There's an income stream for VO BOSS, there's an income stream for VO Peeps, which I also run, and there's an income stream for Anne Ganguzza Voice Productions.
13:28
And so I know, for an event that I put on for VO Peeps, I want to make a certain amount of profit, and so, therefore, I have to determine what am I going to pay my guest director, what am I going to pay to my assistants to promote it, right, on social media? So there's a cost for all of that. And then so there's a number that I want to hit. There's amount of sales that I want to hit so that I can make a profit, or I can make the profit that I want to make for my monthly goal. So I literally have that, and those are actually easy to calculate, because those numbers are like, well, I know I need to make this. Now, how am I going to sell that many tickets, right? Well, I need to pay my assistants to help me market it through email, through social media, and so you just kind of run it down that way.
14:10
And then for VO BOSS, right? So I pay out a lot of money to produce this podcast, right? What do I need in order to support? You know what it costs on a yearly basis to host it on its own website? What do I need to pay my assistants to create the webpages that do the show notes? What do I pay the monthly subscription fee for, believe it or not, Riverside, which is how I record it, and Riverside does some transcripts for me. It does some YouTube shorts for me automatically.
14:39
So all of that stuff is calculatable, and so I love being able to have the different avenues of income and streams of income, because those are ones I can depend on and they're more concrete than getting a voiceover job, because that's the unknown, right? So I have a certain amount of time that I'm spending trying to acquire that voiceover job. I'm marketing, I'm doing direct marketing, I'm auditioning, and then I don't know if I get it. Then, believe it or not, that takes precedence over everything. I mean, voiceover is my highest paying per hour, and so, yeah, ultimately, if I didn't want to do all these other things like coaching and my VO BOSS podcast, I would spend all of my time marketing and dedicating myself to voiceover, because that's my highest paying per hour rate, and so that to me makes sense. However, I like to have multiple avenues in case there are those fluctuations in the market, which there are.
15:29 - Danielle (Guest)
What I like about what you just said was you basically are able to reverse engineer your hourly based on numbers you are able to look at. Okay, this is how much I need to make. So therefore, I need to sell this number of seats to an event, or I need to have this much in sponsorships for the podcast, or what have you. I love that, because then it takes away from, oh well, I'm not really sure, or I'll go to this rate guide and use this number that was provided for me, because it may or may not be the right number for you, using the rate guide for an example.
16:07
It is a guide. It may be that the numbers that you see there may align with what your number needs to be that you can hit. What you can do is you can look at a lot of your expenses. You can look at what does it cost to run the business of you on a monthly or annual basis, and then you can actually calculate, okay, I want to spend this much time in the booth, or I want to spend this much time doing auditions, and you can actually calculate what you need so that that number is specific to you and then you know it. It doesn't necessarily need to be something that you put on your website, but when someone asks you how much would you quote for X, you are able to calculate your time, because your time has a lot of value, what is generally acceptable in the market, and then you can kind of give the number that is right for you and your business and your life.
16:57 - Anne (Host)
Absolutely. And you know, I know that I kind of opened up that part of the discussion by saying, well, maybe I'm different, but in reality, we're all entrepreneurs. I mean, I love the different individual income streams that I have, and I encourage you, as bosses, to have those multiple income streams because, I mean, I'm not special. I mean, I literally just said, oh, I want to do this, and so, therefore, how am I going to be making money of this? If I wasn't making money off of, let's say, my other brands, then I would reconsider, well, are they worth it, right, are they worth it for me to continue? And how will I move forward from this point on? And so, bosses, man, I mean, the world is your oyster.
17:35
I mean, you are entrepreneurs. You can have any other income stream you want and really reverse engineer it just the same way I did. I mean, you could literally be like, okay, my first love is voiceover, and I want to do that. But also, you know what, I actually love shopping, like, I love grocery shopping, so I'll do Instacart, so that might be another income stream, right, or whatever other things that you love and you're interested in doing. Figure out, okay, maybe being an Uber driver is something. I know a lot of people that do that for money and they love it because they love driving, and so you can listen to lots of podcasts while you're driving, by the way, and so you could be doing double duty, like, educating yourself by listening to Danielle and I on your route. So figure out, like, okay, what am I making per hour for my Uber, right, services, and what am I making per hour for whatever my Instacart or whatever else you're doing? It doesn't have to just be voiceover.
18:23
Mine just happened to be voiceover related because they were things I wanted to do. I literally just said, oh, I want to be on the radio. You know what? The closest thing to that is a podcast. Yeah, let me see what that takes, right? And now I said, wow, it cost me money for this podcast, much more than I originally thought. How can I make some of that investment back? Right, how can I do that? And so I came up with the VO BOSS Blast. I came up with sponsorship options, I came up with ads that play, and so ultimately, it becomes a marketing venue for me. So lots of different ways, bosses, that you can work in your hourly rate and figure out what it is that you're making, and if you get so many rides from Uber, you know how much money you're making. I mean, that's concrete, it's there.
19:06 - Danielle (Guest)
Yeah, that's. The great thing about numbers is that it is concrete and you know how much that you can expect to make, and then you can figure out what to do with that money. Maybe it is staying within voiceover, but maybe it's looking at different genres that you're not usually working in, and you can calculate a higher hourly rate for a different genre and then use it that way to scale your business. So there's so many different ways to do it. I do love that you said to be creative and figure it out, because it doesn't have to be what you are seeing everybody else do. Your business is yours and you can make these decisions and you can choose how much you are getting paid. There's a lot of power in that. When you've taken the reins and said, okay, this is my floor, you can make so much more money in deciding how you want to diversify your time and diversify your hourly rate with maybe different genres or different ways to bring in money. I love that.
20:01 - Anne (Host)
And how exciting is that?
20:03 - Danielle (Guest)
Danielle, it's incredibly exciting.
20:04 - Anne (Host)
Right. You said like, literally it's you, you're in control. Yeah, bosses, I want you to just sit there with that for a minute. You are in control of your business, of your destiny. Yeah, and so many people get so preoccupied with what other people are doing. This is your business. How exciting is that? You have, literally, you can do anything you want. I mean, really. I mean, if you're going to sit back in an intelligent and figure out, okay, I really would like to do this, how can I achieve income? How can I?
20:29 - Danielle (Guest)
How can I achieve income? How can I? That's a really important question to ask yourself, because when you ask yourself, how can I do it, you, as a creative, will probably be able to figure it out, and you're not waiting for somebody else to give it to you.
20:43 - Anne (Host)
It's so empowering. It's so empowering. I often say, having worked in corporate before and in education, honestly, like, I could never go back to working for someone again. To be quite honest, I mean, outside of working for a client for a brief amount of time, in which point I do it and they pay me and I'm out, I'm in, I'm out, I get paid. I love that. So what would be your recommendations on somebody, like, what would be their steps to sit down and figure out their hourly rate? What would you suggest they do first?
21:14 - Danielle (Guest)
I would look at what you're currently working on, because again, it's probably going to be genre specific. So if you're doing a lot of non-broadcast narration, for example, you're talking about corporate narration or medical narration, figure out how much of that work you're actually currently doing and how much are you typically charging for that, so you know your non-broadcast hourly rates. And then you can also take a look and see if you're doing commercials, for example, if you're doing like TV and radio commercials, how much are you typically getting for that? And then what can you do to affect those numbers? You can raise your rates if it's non-broadcast. You can start doing more direct marketing, for example, maybe to find and bring in more clients. You can streamline your process. Maybe that is bringing in an editor. That's going to cost you money, but then you can kind of buffer and build that in.
22:08
But look at what you're currently doing, look at how much you're currently charging, and figure out what you can do about it. The easiest thing, it's not easy, easy, but it is something that you can do pretty quickly is increasing your rates. I mean, it's the end of the year. Rate increases are pretty normal for a lot of businesses. So take a look and see. Have you increased your rates in the last year, two, three years? If not, now's the time to do that. Maybe it's your cost per word for e-learning, something, anything, and you can make incremental changes that way, which will have huge benefits for your business.
22:42 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, there's something to be said for the whole end of year, increasing your rates, even in times of hardship and bad economy. Right, you've also got to take that into effect, like what's the market rate, but you can increase your rate in a way that's not like obscene or it's not like a big jolt to your client. And a lot of times I'll preface, I have not raised my rates for five years and so I'm happy to have you continue as a client. However, I need to raise my rates. That is like a whole bold move, but it is something that you can absolutely do, because people raise their rates. I mean, companies raise their rates all the time. I see it, they raise their prices, and so you can do that. Just be careful, you don't want to make it too much of a price change so that it will jolt your customers into saying, I can't afford that. And even if they do say that, the cool thing about working with clients is that you can always like negotiate.
23:34
You can always backtrack and say, you know what, I've always loved working with you. Perhaps we can come to an agreement. And sometimes you do have to like. I mean, I've had it where a client says, I absolutely cannot pay any more than I am right now, and I'll say, you know what, I really love working with you, and I'll make that decision whether it's going to be worth my hourly rate to continue working with them or if it's time to say goodbye. And there have been times that I have said goodbye, and it's okay because it allows me my time back so that I can make more money per hour.
24:03 - Danielle (Guest)
And if you bring in a new client that is paying this higher rate, then it kind of becomes like self-cleaning, in a way. And that's really great. It's a great way to increase your rates as time goes on. Another really great way to increase your rates is to get really comfortable with negotiating and understanding how to negotiate effectively.
24:22 - Anne (Host)
Can I say that enough?
24:24 - Danielle (Guest)
Yeah, that's a really great way. And then you can figure out what your new hourly rate would be and you can negotiate based on what you know that to be, or, as Maria said, your pick up the mic fee. You can just make sure that you're hitting that standard minimum every single time.
24:39 - Anne (Host)
Absolutely. And, like I said, concrete data is great data to reverse engineer, to understand that hourly worth. So, for example, like as I mentioned to you, commercial work for me is my highest paying work. Right after that comes medical narration, after that comes corporate narration and e-learning, because I charge the same. So I have a rate guide that I have a base knowledge of. Here's what I charge, right? And of course, I always promote GVAA rate guide and the rate guides that are out there to go for benchmarks and know that they're just benchmarks.
25:08
You can always adjust and, knowing this, saying, okay, I make the most of my money for non-broadcast narration on medical, perhaps I want to up my marketing in that genre, right, how can I get in front of the people who can hire me so that I can make that money? And so that might be. You're going to have to figure that into. Well, I might have to spend an extra hour marketing, and again, I can sacrifice that because I have my Uber on the side, which is bringing in money so that I can do that, or I can increase my Uber hours if I can't, or I can maybe rely less on one and then increase the other. So it's constantly, I think a balancing act, Danielle, it is. Right.
25:47 - Speaker 3 (Announcement)
In terms of.
25:47 - Anne (Host)
Okay, how can I do this? And so you should, first of all, have an idea of what you're worth. You should establish that number, right? So figure out what it is that you're getting paid the most for, and so, like, I'll do, like, a per hour rate of $1,500 to $1,700 for a medical, non-broadcast narration, right? Breaking that down, that's a pretty high yield, right? So then what is my coaching rate? Okay, so my coaching rate is $200 per hour, or you know what I mean. So how much coaching do I need to do per week? Or how much do I need to do to bring in? I usually like to think of it in terms of monthly, because I know that I have a certain figure that I like to achieve at the end of the year. Break it down to the monthly and then break it down to weekly, and sometimes weekly is tough because of the uncertainty of VO jobs, the cyclical nature of how things go, yeah.
26:33
Yeah, but then there are certain things that I know that every month, I do an event for VO Peeps and I'm going to make this amount of profit, right? Every month I have a subscription to this and so that's going to cost me this much, or I have people sending me money for a subscription, and so maybe I need to increase my marketing to get my subscriptions up, right, people subscribing to VO Peeps, that kind of a thing. So there's so many things that are good and concrete, and repeat clients are also. They're better than non-repeat clients, aren't they?
27:01
Because we can almost rely on them, we know what rate we're getting from them, and so it's easier to kind of juggle those numbers around. And then there's the uncertainty of the audition. Are we going to get the gig? And if we get the gig, do we have a client? Can we turn that client into a return client? So there's all the uncertainties. So you leave a certain amount of hours to handle that, right, to handle that. And if that's not happening in those hours, then you work towards maybe increasing your marketing to that, so it's not just like, I'm making the money. You got to have, I think, a certain amount of hours where you're spending the time working on always marketing or auditioning, trying to achieve those numbers.
27:40 - Danielle (Guest)
Yeah, I love that because it gives you a machine that's kind of like bringing in the next client and then you know what to do when it goes through your pipeline of actually booking or onboarding that client or trying to find more clients like the ones that you're currently working with. It gives you something that's like always working in the background and then what you're currently doing, and you can figure out how to tune your rates to maximize whatever is coming through that pipeline. That's right.
28:08 - Anne (Host)
Good stuff, good stuff, Danielle, yeah. All right. Bosses, go out there and figure out what you're doing, figure out how much you're making per hour, depending on what division of your company that you're working in. So what are you making in commercial, what are you making in non-broadcast narration, what are you working in other income streams? And then plan accordingly and negotiate, yeah, and negotiate, absolutely. All right. Big shout out to our sponsor, ipDTL. Find out more at IPDTL.com. We love ipDTL.
28:41 - Speaker 3 (Announcement)
You guys have an amazing week, and we will see you next week. Bye. Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host, Anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at voboss.com and receive exclusive content, industry-revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution, with permission. Coast-to-coast connectivity via ipDTL.