Key Insights from Aspiring Voice Actors Trends Report with Voices CEO

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Hi there and welcome to Vox Talk, your weekly review from the world of voiceover. I'm your host. Stephanie Ciccarelli from Voices. With the new year freshly upon us, I thought it would be a great idea to invite David Ciccarelli, the CEO of Voices, to share some exciting findings that will benefit your voice acting career in 2023. As many of you know, David and I founded our company nearly 20 years ago, and since then, we've seen a lot in terms of industry trends. Now, every year, Voices creates reports on the state of the industry with insight from our own data as well as survey results from our customers. So today, David and I will be discussing the Voices trends report for aspiring voice actors. David, welcome back to the show.

David Ciccarelli:

Hey, great to be here, Stephanie. Thanks for inviting me on.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

All right, so David, obviously we've been at this for a while, but why is it that we do an annual trends report? Why is it so important? And how did he get started?

David Ciccarelli:

Yeah, you'll probably remember we published our first trends report almost 15 years ago, which was really more of an essay capturing our observations, what we've seen and heard transpire in the industry over the previous year. I think it served as a bit of a year at a glance, if you will. But as the years went on, we recognized that we could continue and keep up with the reports, but also include commentary and maybe quotes from other voice actors, and so getting their feedback and perspective was really helpful and made it a more robust report. And then finally, I'm going to say we launched a survey where it really took it up a few notches that included the opinions and experiences of the industry as a whole. So we went from publishing reports that were just for clients, informing them on what hiring trends were occurring. So think of the styles of performance, maybe new categories of work that were emerging to separate reports for talent, really around what it takes to be successful in the industry. Now, for those academics out there, we're also looking, who are really looking to soak up all the information that they can, this year, I think we've got something really special. There's three reports, one for the clients, two for talent. The first is going to be for aspiring voice actors and that's what I'm hoping to get into today. And it's really for those that are just getting started, who are working part time, that want to understand, well, what is it that their peers are doing and what does it take to ultimately be successful as a full time voice actor? And so we'll do some of those comparisons as well. As I said, we'll follow up the aspiring voice actor report with a report focused on those who are working professionally full time and reveal some of those activities and best practices and their results. So today we're going to go into the results of the aspiring voice actors report, and it's going to cover coaching home studios, auditioning and getting hired.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Well, that's a really robust survey, I'm going to say. We're going to be here for a little while. So obviously we've seen a lot of change in the last few years, particularly the last three years I would say. And it's not just affected how people are doing their work, but it's also the sheer amount of work and talent that are now coming into the online voiceover world. So who exactly is signed up on Voices now, would you say?

David Ciccarelli:

Well, I mean, there's certainly a new generation of voice actors, almost 60% of part-time voice actors that we're working with nowadays, they've actually just started in the last three years. This is a very new group of talent who needs a lot more guidance and attention and really trying to understand the history of the industry and how it's changing on a go forward basis. I mean, there's been over, I'm going to say, a half million new voice actors who've registered on Voices.com in 2022 alone. And almost close to 2 million people have created accounts over the last three years. This is a surge of new talent who need to be guided through the different steps in their journey as a voice actor. In the last three years though, freelance options have really increased of where you're getting work, how you're working, and new people are taking advantage of the platform. And so that's what we're here to do is really serve as that resource to guide people along the path.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh my goodness, I can remember when there were so many talent on the site that you could literally say, oh, we have a small village, or it's the size of St. Thomas now, or you could think of little places, but when you say that there are how many people signed up in 2022?

David Ciccarelli:

Well, just this year is just about half a million people. Now of course this ranges from those who are merely dabbling and interested or curious about it, but who we wanted to understand are those people who have upgraded and taken a Premium membership at Voices.com, who are really pursuing this on a part time or full time basis, who are taking their craft seriously. And so that's who we're going to be talking about today and the people who actually are Premium members who are taking that first couple of steps and what they need to do next.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Wonderful. So I was going to say, so who are we talking about? Because we've got a couple of different surveys. He said there are the aspiring talent and then there's professionals. So today we're looking at people who have literally said, I want to get into voiceover, I'm new to this potentially, or I'm working part time and I haven't quite made that big leap.

David Ciccarelli:

Yup. So we sent the survey to Premium members of Voices.com these are people who have invested $500 in a subscription to the website to create a profile, gain access to job opportunities, and then market themselves online. The survey did go out. We left it open for a couple of weeks or so and we received 320 responses, but we really wanted to immediately start looking over the data. And so you're right, the first question we actually asked was, are you in voice over part time or full time? And 14% of the talent said they were new to the industry, less than a year of experience. 42% said they've been a part time voice actor for one to three years in the three to 15 year category, 15%, and then the final 20% people have been working part time on a basis for over ten years. They probably have another full time job in and of itself, but certainly have a gift for voice acting. So I'm going to say more than half of those people have been really kind of half less than three years and then the other half more than three years. It's really those breakpoints. But from there we parsed all the results to focus on those people as you called them, and certainly we lovingly called them the aspiring voice actors. These are for the folks who are pursuing voice acting on a part time basis. And the overall theme that we identified and really kind of drew out was that aspiring voice actors, they really need to audition more frequently and quickly to keep up in 2023. And why is that important? Well, we can see from the top earners on the platform the way that they're finding their edge is that they shave down their audition time. They're highly selective over the auditions that they go after, but then they do as many of them as quickly as possible and professionally. Some of the ways that they get that advantage is through software and hardware updates that further investments in their home studios, but finding kind of what tools and how to use them and some tips that I'm hoping to get into today, that's really going to be that takeaway of how to do more auditions professionally, yes, but also doing them quicker to get your foot in the door, if you will, in front of those clients and casting directors. That's going to be the key to success in 2023.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yes, I think a lot of talent know that timing is very important. You know, like get in there, do the auditions and do them quickly, be good, be brief, be gone. That's really what it's about. So as we are discussing all of these key pieces of information, obviously coaching is a huge part of what makes someone successful. So, you know, all careers, frankly, should probably start with coaching or at least some kind of mentoring, some listening to the podcast, like what we have here. Now in the survey, what did you see so far as talent investment in coaching and what kind of impact did the coaching have on them?

David Ciccarelli:

Well, we definitely encourage aspiring talent to discover their voice with a coach. It's often hard. You hear the voice kind of vibrating in your own head. It never sounds the same when you hear your voice played back and recording for the first time. So a coach can actually draw what you sound like, give you some words to describe yourself, encourage you to really embrace your kind of true voice, your natural sounding voice. And so to elevate those auditions and book more jobs, working with the coach is definitely essential. Top voice actors on Voices.com are being mentored by some renowned coaches to refine their craft and of course, continue to perfect those auditions. That said, it's time. If you're an aspiring voice actor, it's time that you also invest in a coach. Around this time of year is a good time. You can brush up on the successes from the last year and maybe some other areas of improvement as well too. So how many times do people work with a coach? Well, 28% work with a coach a few times a year, so call it three or more. And yet there is on the other end of the spectrum, 35% of people never work with a coach. So they're a Premium member on Voices.com. They've never worked with a coach. I think it's time that they do. So since this is our recommended first step, there's definitely not people out there who need to hear this word of encouragement. Go out and find a coach. You can visit voices.com/coaches These are really our partners that we refer them to you who understand the Voices platform and more importantly, the career and voice acting and the industry as a whole. So you also ask, Stephanie, how much is being invested in this career development? 44% of people invest up to $500 a year. $500 a year on coaches or conferences. 28% invest somewhere between 500 and a thousand, 22% on invest somewhere between 1 thousand and 5 thousand. So 5000 might seem like a lot in coaches, but remember we said conferences and coaches basically career development. So if I were to guess what does a $5,000 investment in that career development look like? I'd suggest maybe people are looking at this group. I'd suggest that people in this group are attending a couple of conferences a year, likely one in the spring, one in the fall, as well as working on it with a coach on a monthly basis. So I just want to leave this if I can just leave this section by mentioning that because you asked about the results as well too of, well, what happens when you work with a coach? In our last report that’s called “What It Takes to Be a Successful Voice Actor,” we identified that those who work with the coach make on average of $20,000 more annually than those that don't. So for those who are beginners and even the professionals out there. It's probably time to work with the coach if you haven't, certainly a few times a year. Maybe we can include that link to that report in the show notes.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right? If anyone here wants a pay raise, go study. I think if you want $20,000 a year more on average for studying with somebody, you can only benefit, it would seem, from studying with a voice over coach. I know that a ton of coaches obviously are involved with Voices. We love working with them, and we have the great pleasure of seeing their students book. And that's a good sign, is if the coach that you want to work with is actually seeing success in their students and they're getting work, right? So, all that aside, I know there are other categories we need to address today. Another one here is home studio and very popular. Everyone loves home studio stuff. So obviously important, more than ever, to be someone who knows how to use your studio equipment. So everyone needs to learn, but you also need to be able to invest in quality equipment too, even if it's just a small setup to get started. And many people may not realize because you've been wearing the CEO hat for so long, David, but you actually began your career as an audio engineer and you went to the Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology here in London. And that's part of why we met, because you had that background of your studio and you just happen to know a lot about this kind of stuff. So obviously in your nine to five you're running Voices, but you still think a lot about audio and all of the things that our talent need to be successful. So, David, since you do know a lot about this technical side of things, certainly more than I do, for those getting started, what type of equipment would you recommend they use?

David Ciccarelli:

Well, really, the basics are a computer, a laptop, desktop, really doesn't matter. Mac or PC, both will work just fine. You're going to need some audio recording software. Adobe Audition has consistently been one of the most popular cited pieces of software. Of course. Every Mac comes with GarageBand. If you're looking just to get started, there's Adobe Audition as well. Sorry, Audacity as well, too. A lot of talent think that Pro Tools is a bit of overkill. There's just so much in it. It's a very complicated program, despite it being often again cited as an industry standard. But whichever package you need or go with, you're definitely going to need some audio recording software to record, edit, produce, export to any number of file formats. You will, of course need as well a microphone to capture the sound of your voice and then play it back. You got to play back the audio either through headphones or speakers. So those are the main pieces. Now, all of this is going to run you probably a couple thousand dollars, but certainly a lot less than when I started in the industry, when I invested nearly $20,000 to open up that first recording studio you had mentioned and getting into the business nowadays is a lot more affordable than it ever was. In this year's survey, we uncovered that nearly 50% of part time talent have invested somewhere between $1000 and $5,000, so that's right in the sweet spot.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh that’s decent.

David Ciccarelli:

Yeah, that's right in the sweet spot that I mentioned. Exactly. Another 25% of people have invested five hundred dollars to one thousand dollars. So probably using a computer that you already have, maybe a microphone and some entry level software. But they're likely to look to upgrade that equipment in the next year as well too. So that's just getting some sense of the financial commitment that's required in order to sound competitive in this industry.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Certainly you have to think of all of this as an investment from your coaching to your home studio to investing in auditioning even. Right. You have to promote yourself, have a website, all these different things that talent need to think about these days. So as we're talking about the whole using a website to find auditions, auditioning, that's obviously a huge piece of this puzzle. So it's often said that auditioning is the work. So what approach should aspiring talent take when they're doing their auditions?

David Ciccarelli:

You're right. So we kind of follow the journey here. We've, we've got the coaching, we've got the home studio. Now we're even in a capacity that we can do auditions many times a day, working from home. You're right, auditioning is the work. And with well over 5000 jobs posted each month on Voices.com, there's plenty of opportunities. So talent, one of the hardest things is deciding, well, what auditions do I even go for? And you could call it an auditioning strategy, if you will. Those important choices that you need to make of how you're investing your time, how you're going to interpret the script and all that is part of auditioning. Now when we asked, do you even have kind of some kind of auditioning strategy in the survey, 45% of people follow a strategy of submitting fewer auditions, but that somewhat match their skill set. So there's kind of a combination of ‘I'm not just going for everything, I'm going to be pretty selective there.’ That somewhat match the skills. 30% of people though are ‘this actually has to match me perfectly,’ okay. And then this last group, 25% of people submit as many auditions as possible. So that's really just going after all that come to you in your inbox.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

That doesn't sound very strategic, I'm afraid to say. But again, these are people who are new to industry generally. They're not thinking like a businessperson, necessarily not saying that not all are because clearly two thirds of you, of those people, I should say of those respondents, we're thinking about, how can I be strategic? What do I line up with? What's in my wheelhouse, for instance? But I am so happy that people are auditioning. I think that if you aren't auditioning, you cannot possibly be booking any work, and that just is obvious, right? So, I don't know. I would be so excited at some point to hear from anyone who did the survey and just let me know, how are you doing? How is that strategy working out for you? Certainly let us know at Voices. But one of the things that I think talent should be doing is thinking about strategy. And we may very well see that in some of our survey results from our Premium talent who are more experienced.

David Ciccarelli:

Well, generally speaking, Stephanie, the more auditions are better. You just need to do more of the right ones. Right? I described all the opportunities, so we've covered some of the mindset of talents. We also need to talk about the effort. We need to be thinking strategically about going after the right ones. But then there is certainly a great deal of effort, if I can. Let's use a sports analogy. Consider each audition as an ‘at bat’ in baseball, you can't hit the ball unless you're at bat and swinging. And so the more times you're at bat, the more chances that you have to make a hit, be it a single or even a home run. So let me answer that question about how many auditions talent are doing. 60% of the part time talent are submitting between one and five auditions daily. That's really just not enough. I mean, talent who are working professionally are doing 20 to 25, as many as 50. So 1 to 5 every day, you're kind of just getting warmed up. Now, the middle third here, 28% of people submit between 5 to 10. So that's a bit more and great to start to build a routine. That this is our daily practice, and the top 10% of those part time talent are doing 10 to 25 auditions daily. So that's that's really impressive. That's really where you ought to be logging in daily to Voices, other platforms that you're part of, wherever you can get access to those auditions and be developing those skills of auditioning ten plus times on a daily basis.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yes, if you are auditioning for the right jobs. And what we mean by that is ones that match your profile, you have a high jobmatch score for you. Feel confident. You think that, yeah, I actually think I could see myself booking this. Not just, ‘Oh, that would be fun. Let's try this.’ And if you don't fit the spec, do not submit, because it is a bad first impression, and no one will ever tell you that it's just not worth their time to do that, and it's certainly not their job. But, you know, that's basically what we're thinking about here is our aspiring talent, our part time talent, they may not have as much time to actually spend on each audition, but I'm quite curious, David, how much time are they spending on each of their auditions according to the survey?

David Ciccarelli:

You want to be spending enough time to do a professional recording, but not so much time where you're obsessing about the processing, editing, and maybe reading more words in the script than you really need to. When we asked how much time do talent take to record and submit an audition, 23% said three to five minutes, 34% said five to ten minutes, and 38% said ten minutes plus on each audition. Now, we didn't see anyone taking more than ten minutes, which is good. It looks like the community values their time and recognizes that you need to work efficiently recording professionally, but also get through as many as possible that fit your voice quickly. Now, I actually recently spoke with a management consultant turned voice actor who conducted a time and motion study, which is really to mean, yes, he timed himself, he used a stopwatch to determine how long it takes him for each motion, a time and motion study, and then he worked to get that time down. So every click that he was doing in the studio, submitting the audition. And when I actually went back to my call notes and found out what he said, he asked himself, the question he asked himself was, ‘How quickly can I cut my audition time down?’ And his answer was, he got it down to 1 minute and 45 seconds, which is pretty amazing. So my recommendation for aspiring talent, really all talent, is be selective over the auditions that you're going for and then refine your workflow. Get that audition time down to under five minutes each.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Now, that's a great tip. You really don't want to be spending too long on your auditions because then you frankly can't get much else done that day. So why don't we talk about actually getting hired?

David Ciccarelli:

Well, we asked about the roles that the characters that are being performed and what roles are being hired for most. And this is talent saying 37% of the time they say that they get hired for the narrator. In the past year, 27%, the real person, kind of friendly guy, or gal next door. 13% was character work. And Stephanie, this might surprise you, believe it or not, the announcer is still alive and well – 9% of people got hired for an announcer role. Now, if the role is the character, then we also distinguish between the style. It's the way that the character performs or acts. So the styles that talent were most requested to perform, 39% were conversational, another 24% believable. Those are almost somewhat interchangeable terms. Conversational is probably more of a two way, but believable is that narrator kind of right from the heart, 9% say engaging, 7% genuine. I mean, these terms, I think there's almost an overall theme there. Here to sum up conversational, believable, they're going to be the most sought after style. So those are ones that, again, circling back here. You might want to be considering working with the coach of how to be more conversational, how to sound more believable. In 2022, those are the most requested styles. We predict actually that this is going to continue to be the case going forward, here we are in 2023. So in order to not miss out on any potential work, it's important to make sure that you can find your unique version of those particular styles. Conversational and believable.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

No, you know, that isn't actually hard to believe because we've seen this now in voice over since 2007. I think that this has been around even earlier than that. Just the whole idea of being relatable, believable and conversational. And I heard actually it was described really, really well in one of the past episodes of Vox Talk. The whole idea of sounding natural. So conversational could come off as just the way you normally are, the way you would typically sound when you speak. So I know that that's always the hardest thing for talent. What do you mean sound conversational? Well, it's just literally like how you would sound when you're naturally talking about something. And yeah, authenticity doesn't go out of style. So keep that up guys. Keep auditioning, keep doing well. Okay, so our next topic we're going to touch on is marketing. So when it comes to marketing themselves, talent have signed up on Voices because they want to get opportunities to audition, but also to showcase themselves. So David, what else did we learn about the people who responded to the survey so far as what their marketing activities are?

David Ciccarelli:

Well, talent sign up on Voices.com, but also other websites where they can upload samples of their voice, as you said, gain access to potential clients, really marketing themselves online. And so well, Voices, that term is referred to as multi homing. Basically, you have multiple homes. What we hope and certainly see is that Voices is your primary residence, if you will. So most talent have three to five different sites that they're listed on. That could also include social media profiles, sometimes talent, if they have more than five, that's likely going to include their own personal website. We also found out though, that 80% of talent don't have a talent agent and 20% do. So even if you're a part time voice actor and you are very talented in your own right, bring something unique to the business, you can certainly gain and land an agent. But having an agent isn't the be all, end all. Some of our most successful talent on Voices.com have multiple agents. One conversation I had last week is the fellow had nine agents and still collectively he gets as many as ten times more auditions every day than his nine agents combined. So you can see that it's not the silver bullet of landing an agent, but certainly would encourage them that because it's just another stream of potential opportunities for you.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right. And finally, the million dollar question. I think everyone will want to hear the answer to this one. What is the earning potential and how much do talent think they'll be earning in 2023?

David Ciccarelli:

Yes, Stephanie, we definitely wanted to ask this question and learn how we could be supportive in helping talent reach their goals. The estimate for incomes in 2023, 29% of people say under $1,000. So they're really just looking to land those first few jobs. And that's obviously we all need to start somewhere nearly half or between 1000 and 10,000. 20%, saying 10,000 to 25,000, definitely a healthy income for someone who's engaged on a part time basis and then the remaining above 25,000. Now, professional voice actors are going to estimate their income much higher than that, and I'd love to get into their view. Perhaps if you'd have me on for another podcast later on in the year when we release those findings.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

No, sure thing. I think that's really, really great for people to have this information, because information is power and if you're able to use it effectively, then you'll be able to have a much better 2023 in your voice over career, I think. So all of that said, David, this survey is available online. People may have already seen the link being shared on social media. You can, of course, find it in our show notes. That's another place you can go. But so far as like, the next time, I think there's a bit of a spread of time in between when this report has been released and when the next one will be. And we'll be sure to have you on the show as soon as that report is released.

David Ciccarelli:

All right, sounds great. Stephanie. Thanks for having me on the show.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And that's the way we saw the world through the lens of voice over this week. We had a great time going over the Talent Trends report and hope that you can get some valuable takeaways from this episode. Also looking forward to the future episode that we will have detailing another trends report. So for Vox Talk, I'm your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli. As always, the show is produced by Geoff Bremner. We're so excited to see you next week, so make sure that you stay tuned, subscribe, follow, Vox Talk wherever you get your podcast and be sure to share this with your friends. Thanks again and we'll see you next week.