How to Fire a Difficult Voice Over Client
- Tom Dheere
- May 4
- 3 min read
As the VO Strategist, I define client offboarding as a critical audit for your business. It is the strategic removal of a voice seeker who creates more friction than profit. Understanding how to price out a difficult voice over client is the difference between being an exploited employee and a profitable CEO.
Firing a Difficult Voice Over Client often feels like career suicide
Most voice actors are terrified of losing a revenue stream. But if you are spending all your time fixated on a difficult voice over client who is a pain in the ass and lives in your head rent-free, the money is not worth it.
What Does a Difficult Voice Over Client Look Like?
In my thirty years in this game, I have seen every kind of knucklehead, so I have too much experience in this arena. You know you have a problem when:
They contact you at the last minute and expect you to drop everything.
The scripts are a disaster (bad grammar, poor punctuation, or "Google Translate" specials).
They micro-manage your performance until you sound like a robot.
They under-direct you and then get frustrated when you don't read their minds.
They send endless retakes for performance reasons or script revisions.
They take FOREVER to pay.
The CEO Mindset
Using my farmer's analogy, a difficult client is like a weed. They take up the space where a high-paying, professional client should be. If you spend all your time trying to turn a weed into a ripe fruit, you're not giving the rest of your crops the time and attention they need to grow.
Make Them Quit
You don't need to stage a dramatic breakup scene. "It's not me, it's you!".
The most professional way to fire a client is to raise your rates. Simple, right?
The next time they have a project for you, tell them your rates have gone up.
If they haven't paid you for the last project and the invoice is overdue, either refuse to do the project until the overdue invoice is paid or tack on a Late Fee to the new project.
The next time they bring you a last-minute project with a short deadline, add a Rush Fee.
Every time they send a script that requires rewrites, add a Revision Fee.
If they say they can't afford you anymore, great! Mission accomplished. You have successfully fired them without burning a bridge.
If they pay the new rates, great! Their shenanigans is now worth your time.
Raising your rates to keep a difficult voice over client in line is easy. Actually calculating your "worth-it" threshold and communicating it without sounding like a jerk is the hard part. Implementation is always harder, but it's an important exercise to improve the health of both your mind and your bank account.
Thanks for Reading!
If your current voice over client roster is giving you more headaches than paychecks, let’s talk. I offer a 15-Minute Strategy Consult to help you identify the "weeds" in your business and create a plan to attract better voice seekers.
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From my village to yours, this is Tom Dheere, the VO Strategist.
As the VO Strategist, Tom Dheere has provided voice over business & marketing coaching since 2011.
He's also a voice actor with over 30 years of experience who has narrated just about every type of voice over you can think of.
When not voicing or talking about voicing, Tom produces the sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22.
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