Let’s face it, quoting for voice over work is every voice over artist’s nightmare. It’s complicated, people have a range of budgets, and there are tons of different types of media. Every day I deal with lots of voice over enquiries. Mostly, my experience is that voice overs hate quoting, and as a result, they don’t do a very good job of it. I honestly don’t blame them. Quoting sucks. It’s hard to know what to charge and can be really tricky – you don’t want to over or under charge. As a result, the quoting process is often quite messy and complicated. The end goal of quoting is to land you the gig. And the way to do that is provide your client with a simple, clean, quick quote. The keyword being simple and the primary goal of is to help voice overs worldwide: KEEP IT SIMPLE!
HOW TO HANDLE AN ENQUIRY: STEP BY STEP
STEP 1: Getting the Enquiry: Often you’ll receive an enquiry via email. The most important thing is to get back to people immediately. Don’t try to «stall» them.
- Don’t email back – Phone them. You will double your chances of getting the gig.
- Give them something to work with – even though you might need more information to give a proper quote, at the very least you can tell them your usual hourly rates for non-broadcast work.
STEP 2: What to Charge:
- Check out available rate calculators to help you formulate your rates – UK and Ireland or if all else fails, consults fails, consult the «ready reckoner» cheat sheet in the previous chapter of this book.
- And if you still don’t know what to charge – charge what you like. Think about what would make the job worthwhile to you, and quote that. Don’t over think it.
- Make it one easy price. Not too many details (you don’t need to add that you are going to use 10 bucks of gas in your to get to the studio, or any extras. Include everything in the price)
STEP 3: C.Y.A: C.Y.A. stands for «cover your **s». In 99% of enquiries, the client wouldn’t have given you enough information to do a proper quote. (I.e. they don’t tell you how many hours of studio time, length of the script, what’s the usage, what media etc). The worst thing you can do is respond with a long email with 20 questions, asking all these things. I’m not saying, don’t ask those questions. But when you get back to people, try to give them something to work with. (Only email them if you have no phone contact number, it’s much better to phone).
- Tell them your usual hourly rate for non-broadcast
- C.Y.A. by saying that the quote is subject to seeing the final script, and that a usage fee might be applicable depending on which media the work will be broadcast in.
In this way, you’ve given them something to work with, and at the same time covered yourself for any eventuality.
SO YOUR RESPONSE SHOULD COVER 3 AREAS:
- TRUMPET BIT (blow your own trumpet about how experienced, suitable you are)
- ONE EASY PRICE (Keep it simple)
- C.Y.A. (In case you don’t have all the information)