Choreographer Moonlights as Voiceover Artist

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

What's up, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. This is your host, Chris Guillebeau. I'm so glad you're here in this day and age. There are all kinds of people out there that are asking questions, trying to figure out, hey, what do I do?

What do I do with my life, first of all, but just to make it a little bit more practical, what can I do to take better care of myself and my family? How can I earn extra money? That is the mission of this podcast for 1212 days and counting. I'm telling stories, answering listener questions, just trying to provide lots and lots of examples of things that you can do right now. All right, that's the whole thing.

That's our entire agenda. Nothing is for sale. All of our archives are freely available. And by the way, to segue to today's story, you won't voice any objections when you hear how this freelancer uses her theater training to earn six figures after hours. That was a good sentence.

I hope you appreciated it. Now, voiceover work is one of those remote jobs you can do on your own from anywhere, at least with the right skill and some basic equipment. And in case you're curious, I will tell you the exact software and gear I use to record the podcast. I'll do that at the end of the episode. It's very simple and affordable.

So this episode, this story, choreographer moonlights as voiceover artist. [Music]

Kate Quinn has never known a life without freelancing. Back in 2016, she was working a full-time job as a choreographer at a theater while running her own independent fitness business. One day, she decided she wanted to produce some video content to share on her website. As she began to bring her ideas to life, she realized she needed someone to do voiceover work.

Turning to her network, she asked a colleague at the theater if he might be able to help. Going through this process made Kate curious. She wanted to learn more about how voiceover gigs worked. So in exchange for dinner, that colleague offered to show her everything he was doing behind the scenes. Having studied theater in college, Kate had been trained on how to manipulate and use her voice.

Her past acting training and experience also gave her confidence. It wasn't harder than acting in a play and maybe even easier since there weren't hundreds of eyes staring at her. Watching her friend work and explain the process gave her the necessary technical foundation on which she could start. She learned the basics on how to speak from the microphone and the types of software she could use to record and edit her audio. And then she got to work.

Kate invested a few hundred dollars picking up a decent mic and learning as she went along. She also used some free editing software which offered a solid starting point. But where would she find her first customers? She thought about where she was already buying services herself and one of those places was Fiverr. If you don't know, Fiverr is an online marketplace for freelance services where users can list small one-off jobs.

It was originally designed with the idea that any job would cost just $5. Although now jobs can start at a higher price. Having had a good experience as a buyer, Kate opened a seller account. As she made her listing, she was mindful to make sure that it was attractive. Her photos had to look great.

Her descriptions had to be thorough and the services she offered clearly listed. Designing a really attractive, well-put-together seller profile was key to her success. In March 2016, Fiverr served up her first client and she put the equipment she had purchased to good use. Everything worked as planned and Kate began to get more gigs. The more she completed, the more positive reviews she had.

And as people raved about her work, her ranking in Fiverr's internal algorithm rose. To Kate, that's the beauty of Fiverr. When she does her job well and presents clear information, the marketing takes care of itself. As she says, the platform values excellent work. So the better your product and the more people rate you well, the more likely you are to be visible to buyers.

That said, Kate also knows that she can't just depend on that Fiverr algorithm. For better or worse, most of her marketing is heavily dependent on the platform. And there have been dips in her analytics that she just can't explain. Because it's always such a guessing game, Kate finds that she does better by focusing on the things she can control. It's a good lesson in life, by the way, focus on the things you can control.

Keeping up the good work, tending to messages and reviews quickly and improving her sound equipment are just some of the items she thinks about. In fact, she's since moved on from her starter mic set to her own fully decked out home studio. While she still faces the occasional difficulty with customers and hard to pronounce words, especially when narrating in medical related videos, Kate has never stopped working hard. She knows it's worth it when she hears herself in corporate voicemails or on Spotify, marketing various companies. And in October, Kate's business hit six figures for the first time.

[Music]

If you are interested in voiceover work, we have had at least three other episodes on the podcast about it, covering different aspects of it. I'll just give you two of them here. Episode 489, 489 Doctor Does Off Hours Voiceover Work to Pay Med School Bills, and more recently, episode 923, 923, Learning Designer Presses Play on Voiceover Geek. I promised you a list of my software and gear that I used to record the show. It's actually very basic.

I use the free software Audacity. Again, it's free editing software, open source basically. And I use a Shure SM7B microphone, along with the Behringer direct box. And the only reason you would possibly care about that is if you're interested in doing this yourself or entering the world of voiceover. So I will include links to those items on the notes page.

I should mention that my producer, Chuck, hey Chuck, thanks for your help. He no doubt has access to some much better tools, but that's his profession. That's his thing. Okay, so the point is that it's not cost prohibitive to have some good quality equipment, especially when you're just starting out. Okay, I hope you enjoyed this episode.

Be strong out there, be strong, be safe, be sane. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Those notes for today are at sidehustleschool.com/1212, 1,212. If you've got a comment or question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Otherwise, come back tomorrow for another episode.

My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.