How To Get Started In Voiceover and Spokesperson Videos

Are you interested in getting into voiceover or maybe becoming a video spokesperson? You should do it! This has been a complete career change for me and I love it! You can get started with a minimum budget right away, and grow your tech gear as you grow your income and experience!

I was looking for a way to earn money from home, we were slowly coming out of the 2 years of the pandemic and I just wasn’t sure what I was going to do to earn some extra money for our family. I really didn’t want to work for someone else, I saw other making great income online and not having to leave their homes unless they chose too.

The first thing that I looked into was voiceover and audiobooks. I bought a simple usb mic downloaded the free software (audacity) and signed up for the site ACX. I watched a few youtube videos on how to edit the audio, and believe me it had to be simple or I wasn’t doing it. I don’t like editing, I am more of a creator so it had to be 3 steps and done. I auditioned for a few books and landed one fairly quickly! I was so excited and got to work. I learned a lot in that first book. I was not very organized and the first piece of advice is make a folder for your book and keep each chapter in there eventually move it to a hard drive so you can keep the space on your computer. Sometimes you need to fix a word or two that you may have pronounced incorrectly and you need to go back and find that chapter. So name them and number them in a way that you can find them easily and quickly. I have enjoyed the books that I narrated so far, its an amazing feeling to get paid to read a book that you enjoy. I have learned what kind of books I like to read and which I do not, and feel too much like work. I stay away from technical style books. I love mystery and light romance.

I started to look for more voiceover channels on youtube to learn as much as I could and what other jobs may be out there. I soon realized that there is a large community of voiceover actors and some of the jobs can be extremely profitable, but you do need to navigate the low budget ones too. I signed up for a few platforms trying to find my way. Fiverr.com, Voices.com, Voice123, Mandy.com, Backstage and a few more. So far I have had voiceover jobs on Voices.com, Fiverr and Mandy.com. These are jobs for elearning, youtube videos, phone messages and more. As my business grew I did upgrade my mic slightly and bought some foam padding for my closet. Oh yes we should talk about my recording space! You can spend alot of money buying a pre build recording studio if you have the funds available. They start around $5,000 each. But most of us begin by creating a space in a walk in closet, storage area etc. Mine is a space in the back of a storage room in the far end of the basement. I has concrete walls that I covered with foam pieces, sleeping bags and moving blankets. I had a sound engineer check it for free and my sound is perfect! It didn’t cost me much. If you are using a walk in closet the clothes really help with the sound.

I really enjoy voiceover and will continue to book jobs like the recent one I did for Sunrype Juice, but when I found spokesperson videos I found my true passion. I was hearing that clients were asking some of their voiceover actors if they would also go in front of the camera and I was finding that almost all said no way! I think that quite a few voice actors really love this profession because no one sees them and they can create the characters for the script in the privacy of their recording space. However, I enjoy being in front of the camera and thought this was something I would like to try! This is how my Video Spokesperson business got started.

Becoming a video spokesperson was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I had a ring light already because I have a small youtube channel that I am still learning how to grow and its a work in progress. So I put my phone in the ring light, made a video and put a new gig up on Fiverr.com. I said in my description that this was an authentic style, genuine video. And this is when my life changed! The orders started to come in right away! I had no idea that so many businesses were looking for this style of video. I create videos for all sizes of businesses that are promoting their programs. As my business has grown so have my clients. I also include large universities and corporate clients for elearning and explainer videos. At this point I have only been a video spokesperson for 3 months, in my second month I made just over $5,000. I have added a few pieces of equipment to my spokesperson business just to improve sound and background. I have 2 new microphones for my iphone that just plug straight in. I bought a backdrop with a white or green backdrop so I can do more explainer videos like this one: I also added 2 box lights to use with the backdrop for better lighting. But you don’t need to start with these. Just begin with you phone, and use the natural light from a window to light your face until you have the earnings to add a ring light! Keep it simple and authentic and you will be suprised how many jobs you book!

I have since created more gigs for my services on Fiverr such an unboxing videos, and I am on the path to becoming a Top Rated Fiverr seller in the next couple of months. This level starts with earnings of $20,000! The future looks very bright!

I hope you enjoyed this and if you need any help setting up your space reach out to me! I am not a tech expert, someone who believed she could do it so she did!

Best wishes on your business! See you out there!

Lisa

GEAR I USE:

VOICEOVER

VIDEO SPOKESPERSON

Phone

Ring Light