I love accounting.
I know, I know, there’s something very very wrong with me and what the hell am I doing in the voiceover industry. Some of my friends still wonder how a guy like me who loves numbers, organization, and structure can thrive in such an unpredictable, right-brained vocation.
Frankly, so do I.
Here’s the thing. As a voice talent, you’re not an employee. You’re not an artist. You’re not a child. You’re a business. You need to think like one and act like one. There’s plenty of time in the booth to be all creative & whimsical & bard-like. That’s the fulfilling, wonderful part of the deal that we all aspire to do and be as much as possible.
You need to do the work to get the job. You need to sit your ass down, be a grown-up, and do the not-so-fun stuff now to get to do the fun stuff later. That includes invoicing, building & sticking to a budget, and learning how to save for the future.
Don’t wanna do the grown-up stuff? Have a lolly-pop and join your local community theater group.
Is that enough tough love for you? Here’s the other side of that coin.
You know that feeling when you get that phone call or email congratulating you on the voiceover gig you just booked? The one that makes you spin around and do a little dance in your office? That feeling you get because you know one your efforts which have taken weeks, months, or years to do or maintain actually paid off?
I especially love that feeling when I know it happened as a result of me crunching the numbers and letting that guide me through the process of building my voiceover business. To be able to marry the creative with the technical gives me great satisfaction. I don’t know, I guess I’m just weird like that. 🙂
TIP OF THE WEEK
You don’t need a degree in Accounting to have some level of financial intelligence when it comes to your business. Here are three tips:
Read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad“. This book changed how I think not about only money, but about who I am as a person and how I make decisions.
Know Your Cash Flow. Create a budget for your business as well as your personal life. You should know where every penny comes from and where every penny goes. The more you know that, the better you’ll understand how effective your marketing efforts are and you can make better decisions down the road.
Keep Business and Personal Separate. You should have at least two checking accounts. All of your voiceover income should go into and all business-related expenses should go out of one of them. Then transfer your profit to a second checking account to pay for your personal expenses. Trust me, when the IRS comes a knockin’, you’d better have a clean audit trail or things could get wonky.
HAPPY HAPPYS
Happy Chili Dog Day and Walk On Stilts Day!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Every group has its own dynamic and if you look around the room and can’t find the ***hole, then it’s you. Hugh Laurie
From my village to yours; this is Tom Dheere, GKN News…
Tom Dheere is a 20-year veteran of the voice over industry who has narrated thousands of projects for clients in over a dozen countries. He is also a coach at Edge Studio, voiceover business consultant known as the Voice Over Strategist, and is currently writing & producing the comic book “Agent 1.22”.