Everyday VOpreneur® with Marc Scott

A voiceover business can live or die by its habits - the small things you do every day that quietly add up to growth or to money left on the table. In this episode, Marc breaks down five bad habits that are probably costing you income and opportunity right now, and exactly how to fix each one. First: saying yes to everything. Not the jobs themselves, but the free revisions, the after-hours rush gigs, the "just this one time" asks that quietly become a precedent you can't undo. Marc makes the case for a clear revisions and retake policy up front, and charging a premium for premium service. Then there's confusing being busy with being productive - the six hours in Canva on a graphic that should take fifteen minutes, the equipment rabbit holes, the week spent scheduling social posts instead of marketing. Every hour on a low-priority task is an hour stolen from something that actually moves the needle. He also digs into not tracking your business expenses and subscriptions (plus a simple AI trick to find duplication you can cut), leaning too heavily on one client and why you replace them before they leave not after, and the habit that may cost the most of all: not asking enough questions before you quote. Usage, deliverables, revisions, and the single question - "did you have a budget in mind?" - that has added 20, 50, even 100% to Marc's quotes. Which one hit a little too close to home? CONNECT WITH MARC SCOTT & VOPRENEUR 🖱️ Marc Scott on Instagram - https://instagram.com/marcscott 🖱️ Marc Scott on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@MarcScottVO 🖱️ VOpreneur® on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@vopreneur RESOURCES FOR VOICE ACTORS * Voice Over Marketing Resources ➡️ Visit https://vopreneur.com * Get an instant $25 credit when you sign up for VoiceZam ➡️ Visit https://voicezam.com/marcscott * For voice over services: ➡️ Visit https://marcscottvoiceover.com * Join the VOpreneur Facebook Group ➡️ Visit https://facebook.com/groups/vopreneur If you need guidance with your voice over business or learning how to more effectively market, I can help. Book a 15 minute free consultation with me to discuss your specific needs. https://vopreneur.com/free 🎧 Subscribe to the VOpreneur Podcast on your favourite podcast platform - Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen - so you never miss an episode. 00:00 5 Bad Habits Costing Voice Actors Money 01:06 #1: Saying Yes to Everything 03:09 Why "Just This Once" Becomes a Dangerous Precedent 07:01 #2: Confusing Busy With Productive 10:39 Are You Avoiding the Work That Actually Makes Money? 12:30 #3: Not Tracking Your Business Expenses 15:58 How to Audit Your Subscriptions and Save Money 18:04 #4: Depending Too Heavily on One Client 21:55 #5: Not Asking Enough Questions Before Quoting 25:30 What You Need to Clarify Before Quoting 27:09 Recap: Break These 5 Bad Habits

Last week's episode on incomplete marketing advice struck a chord, so Marc is back with five more. Same idea: these aren't bad pieces of advice, they're just not the whole story - and acting on half the advice is how voice actors end up spinning their wheels. First up, "you need to be everywhere." Marc disagrees. Spreading 5% of your effort across ten platforms beats nothing, but one or two platforms you actually show up on - where your buyers are and where you enjoy creating - will always win. Then "let your work speak for itself," which is only half true: do great work, but the work goes quiet the moment a client forgets about you, so the relationship is the other half. He digs into "find your niche" - powerful until it isn't, as he learned when explainer work shifted and then AI wiped out most of his e-learning business overnight. Niche hard, but never let one become a disproportionate share of your income. On "more connections equal more opportunities," he reframes it around the real question: how many people in your network would recognize your name in their inbox tomorrow? And the one he saved for last, knowing it's the most controversial: "never work for less than your rate." Marc is a genuine fan of the GVAA, but as David Tobak himself has said, it's a rate guide, not a rate gospel. He makes the case for context - markets, economies, the whole deal - and tells the story of a $14,000 offer he turned down, because sometimes the big paydays are the bad jobs. Which of the five do you want to push back on? That's the conversation Marc wants to have. ‼️ Did you miss the 5 from last week? Click Here  CONNECT WITH MARC SCOTT & VOPRENEUR 🖱️ Marc Scott on Instagram - https://instagram.com/marcscott 🖱️ Marc Scott on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@MarcScottVO 🖱️ VOpreneur® on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@vopreneur RESOURCES FOR VOICE ACTORS * Voice Over Marketing Resources ➡️ Visit https://vopreneur.com * Get an instant $25 credit when you sign up for VoiceZam ➡️ Visit https://voicezam.com/marcscott * For voice over services: ➡️ Visit https://marcscottvoiceover.com * Join the VOpreneur Facebook Group ➡️ Visit https://facebook.com/groups/vopreneur If you need guidance with your voice over business or learning how to more effectively market, I can help. Book a 15 minute free consultation with me to discuss your specific needs. https://vopreneur.com/free 🎧 Subscribe to the VOpreneur Podcast on your favourite podcast platform - Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen - so you never miss an episode. 00:00 More Voice Over Marketing Advice That Needs Context 00:53 Do You Really Need to Be Everywhere? 03:25 Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms 04:46 Why Great Work Alone Isn’t Enough 08:21 Find Your Niche Without Limiting Your Business 11:38 More Connections Don’t Always Mean More Opportunities 14:21 Building Relationships Through Consistent Engagement 15:09 Should You Ever Work Below Your Rate? 18:20 How Client Size and Market Affect Pricing 21:23 The GVAA Rate Guide Is a Guide 22:05 Why I Turned Down a $14,000 Voice Over Job 25:10 Looking Beyond the Marketing Clichés 25:47 Which Advice Would You Challenge?

The VOpreneur Podcast was built to help you grow your voiceover business through marketing, and this week Marc gets back to exactly that. He walks through five pieces of marketing advice voice actors hear all the time - advice that isn't working. Not because it's wrong, but because it's incomplete. Send more cold emails. Marc runs a 24-25% response rate right now, and he didn't get there by sending more - he got there by sending better. He breaks down the chain to check before you add volume: are you targeting the right companies and job titles, is the email actually personal or does it sound like everyone else, and are your website and demos making the right impression? Post on social media every day. Consistency matters, but you can post daily for a year and generate nothing if it's the wrong content reaching the wrong audience. The fix is strategic, not just consistent - build the right network and publish content that adds value to the people who actually hire. Be authentic. Real, but incomplete. Authenticity is the hook; there still has to be a clear value proposition and a reason to choose you. You need a better demo. Sometimes true - and sometimes a crutch that stalls your marketing when the real problem is that nobody's hearing the great demo you already have. And follow up until they respond - good advice, as long as every follow-up carries something of value, because most of Marc's responses come after the third email. Which one hits home for you? CONNECT WITH MARC SCOTT & VOPRENEUR 🖱️ Marc Scott on Instagram - https://instagram.com/marcscott 🖱️ Marc Scott on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@MarcScottVO 🖱️ VOpreneur® on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@vopreneur RESOURCES FOR VOICE ACTORS * Voice Over Marketing Resources ➡️ Visit https://vopreneur.com * Get an instant $25 credit when you sign up for VoiceZam ➡️ Visit https://voicezam.com/marcscott * For voice over services: ➡️ Visit https://marcscottvoiceover.com * Join the VOpreneur Facebook Group ➡️ Visit https://facebook.com/groups/vopreneur If you need guidance with your voice over business or learning how to more effectively market, I can help. Book a 15 minute free consultation with me to discuss your specific needs. https://vopreneur.com/free 🎧 Subscribe to the VOpreneur Podcast on your favourite podcast platform - Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen - so you never miss an episode. 00:00 5 Voice Over Marketing Tips That Aren't Working 00:42 #1: Stop Sending More Cold Emails. Send Better Ones. 04:07 Why Your Cold Emails Aren't Getting Responses 07:46 #2: Do You Really Need to Post Every Day? 10:40 #3: Being Authentic Isn't Enough 14:00 #4: Do You Actually Need a Better Demo? 16:16 Is Your Demo the Problem or Your Marketing? 17:31 #5: Follow Up, But Do It the Right Way 19:45 Recap: How to Fix These 5 Marketing Mistakes

After the honest Voice123 data episode struck a nerve, Marc didn't want anyone getting stuck in the frustration. Strong feelings about online casting are easy to carry, and they can quietly infect your whole mindset about the business. So this week he flips the lens: where are his opportunities actually coming from right now? The answer is a lot of places - because he's been marketing his butt off and tracking every bit of it. He walks through the channels one by one, and some of them might surprise you. The one that caught him off guard: more opportunity in the last two weeks from Voice123 off the platform than on it - buyers who found him in search, then came straight to his website. He gets into optimizing for LLMs and AI search (now 54% of all searching), daily engagement on LinkedIn, working his CRM with targeted follow-ups, and a new-lead outreach approach that's running a 24% conversation rate because every email is genuinely personalized. He also talks about the DocuShort content getting him indexed in ChatGPT, the agent relationship that's had its best year in a decade, and why - sitting here in October - he feels more optimistic than he did in January, including the clients coming back to human voiceover after the AI-everything phase. The challenge he leaves you with: how many streams of opportunity does your business really have, and could you add just one or two more? CONNECT WITH MARC SCOTT & VOPRENEUR 🖱️ Marc Scott on Instagram - https://instagram.com/marcscott 🖱️ Marc Scott on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@MarcScottVO 🖱️ VOpreneur® on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@vopreneur RESOURCES FOR VOICE ACTORS * Voice Over Marketing Resources ➡️ Visit https://vopreneur.com * Get an instant $25 credit when you sign up for VoiceZam ➡️ Visit https://voicezam.com/marcscott * For voice over services: ➡️ Visit https://marcscottvoiceover.com * Join the VOpreneur Facebook Group ➡️ Visit https://facebook.com/groups/vopreneur If you need guidance with your voice over business or learning how to more effectively market, I can help. Book a 15 minute free consultation with me to discuss your specific needs. https://vopreneur.com/free 🎧 Subscribe to the VOpreneur Podcast on your favourite podcast platform - Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen - so you never miss an episode. 00:00 Why Voice Actors Need More Opportunities 01:32 The Danger of Relying on One Source of Work 03:53 Getting Back to Marketing Basics 05:39 Finding Voiceover Clients Through Voices123 07:07 Getting Voiceover Leads Through ChatGPT and AI Search 09:42 How LinkedIn Is Generating Opportunities 11:12 Why Following Up With Past Clients Works 14:35 Is Email Marketing Still Effective for Voice Actors? 16:50 Using Content Creation to Attract Voiceover Clients 17:42 The Value of Voiceover Agents 18:53 Where My Voiceover Opportunities Are Coming From 20:24 Rebuilding a Voiceover Business After AI Disruption 21:12 Why Some Clients Are Choosing Human Voices Over AI 23:24 How to Create More Voiceover Opportunities 24:04 Setting Marketing Goals and Tracking Results

One year ago, Marc rejoined Voice123 after nearly a decade away. Not to prove a point - he's never been the anti-online-casting guy - but because he wanted to speak about the platform intelligently again, from real, current experience. So he tracked everything for a year. This episode is the honest, data-driven report. He's upfront that this isn't an opinion piece. These are the numbers from his spreadsheet: a year mostly at the $2,200 tier, an 80% listen rate, a one-in-five shortlist rate, a one-in-21 booking rate - and 11 of 12 months stuck in the 50th percentile, unable to get access to enough auditions to even climb out. Marc walks through what that actually looked like day to day: auditions arriving between 1am and 4am and expiring before he got into the studio, consistently being invited in the fourth or fifth group of talent, and a fully optimized profile that still pulled invitations for a male Cuban American voice, audiobooks, and TTS work he never listed. Then the part he flags as speculation: the inexplicable jump to the top 10% three weeks before his membership was due to renew. He closes with the comparison that would have shocked anyone who knew him ten years ago - why, three months into his Voices.com experiment, he's already submitted twice the auditions and made more money than in a full year on Voice123, and why he won't be re-upping. Take the data as you will. Here's exactly what a year cost and what it returned. CONNECT WITH MARC SCOTT & VOPRENEUR 🖱️ Marc Scott on Instagram - https://instagram.com/marcscott 🖱️ Marc Scott on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@MarcScottVO 🖱️ VOpreneur® on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@vopreneur RESOURCES FOR VOICE ACTORS * Voice Over Marketing Resources ➡️ Visit https://vopreneur.com * Get an instant $25 credit when you sign up for VoiceZam ➡️ Visit https://voicezam.com/marcscott * For voice over services: ➡️ Visit https://marcscottvoiceover.com * Join the VOpreneur Facebook Group ➡️ Visit https://facebook.com/groups/vopreneur If you need guidance with your voice over business or learning how to more effectively market, I can help. Book a 15 minute free consultation with me to discuss your specific needs. https://vopreneur.com/free 🎧 Subscribe to the VOpreneur Podcast on your favourite podcast platform - Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen - so you never miss an episode. 00:00 Why I Returned to Voice123 After Nearly a Decade 01:55 Starting at $888, Then Upgrading to $2,200 02:43 The Biggest Problem: I Couldn't Access Auditions 04:20 My Voice123 Numbers After One Year 04:57 Why I Couldn't Escape the 50th Percentile 07:54 Suddenly, I Jumped Into the Top 10% 09:33 Top 10%... And Still No Auditions 11:54 What Does It Actually Take to Succeed on Voice123? 13:09 Was the $2,200 Membership Worth It? 13:55 Voice123 vs. Voices.com: My Actual Results 16:51 What Exactly Am I Paying For? 19:26 My Honest Assessment After One Year 21:06 Which Casting Site Would I Choose Today?