Yeah, I know exactly what you’re thinking right now. After you read the title of this blog, you probably thought, “Oh man! It’s yet ANOTHER blog about lowballing in the voiceover industry!” I know you might find it ironic and even a little funny that I have already made a post advising people to stop blogging about this topic and here I am – jumping on the bandwagon right along with the rest of them. Before you decide to click away or curse me out in an email or private facebook message, bear with me for a moment because I’ve developed a perspective that is much different from many others and just might lead this bandwagon in a completely different direction.
Within this industry (and in the world of professional services in general), it is important to have a “Field of Dreams” perspective when it comes to quality. What do I mean by that? Well, if you are familiar with the movie, then you probably already know where this is going, but (for those that do not), “Field of Dreams” was a hit 1989 Kevin Costner movie about a farmer that follows the guidance of a mysterious voice to plow under his corner in to build a baseball field. The voice uttered one of the most famous movie quotes of all time, “If you build it, he will come.”
His wife allows him to go through with it, but they both later regret the decision when they realize that no one came, they were broke and were about to lose everything. However, that is when Kevin’s character (Ray) started receiving visitors who were actually dead baseball players from the early 1900s. The voice provides him with guidance to help these players fulfill their long lost dreams and goals. Other people believed that Ray was crazy, because he was the only person that could hear the voice and see the players so they kept urging him to change his mind, replant his crops and get back to making money as a farmer. However, Ray ignored them and kept moving forward, helping these players fulfill their dreams. Towards the end of the movie, Ray’s dream was fulfilled as he was reunited with his late father followed by thousands of people driving to the field to watch the game, making it a huge success.
Now, you might be asking yourself, “What in the world does this movie have to do with lowballing in the voiceover industry?” Before you start thinking that I have lost my mind, that I am hearing voices or that I just really love watching Kevin Costner movies, hear me out.
Regardless of the type of work we do or the specific industry that we might be working in when we do it, we always need to focus on providing quality work for quality pay. It is very easy to get so caught up in the playing the game of numbers that you forget about what is truly important. There are so many lowballing parasites that are feeding off of the voiceover industry right now that it can be extremely difficult to survive in this industry. Many people have decided to drastically drop all of their prices and become one of those parasites just to be able to make a little money. Even though that may seem like the key to success, many voiceover talents and artists find out the hard way every year that it is not.
If you focus on building a quality business, then you should not settle for anything less than quality pay for the hard work and consistent effort that you bring to the table day in and day out. There are many more customers out there right now that are looking to spend as little as they can to get what they need than there are customers that are willing to pay quality prices for quality work. However, that latter group is the only group that we should be targeting! We need to be willing to stand our ground and be fully prepared to defend our work, refusing to compromise or jeopardize our quality standards just to be able to work for a client that clearly has no respect for them. You can’t expect to find a diamond in a shop that only offers cubic zirconia and you definitely should not expect to purchase a brand new vehicle that runs great from a salvage yard. Therefore, why would a customer expect to receive anything other than cheap imitations and junk from a lowballing voice talent?
This is the picture that we have to be willing to paint for our prospective clients that are “shopping around” and “weighing their options” but always seem to be leaning more towards the lowballing talent instead. Whenever a client even thinks about using the line, “Well, Mr. Lowballer is willing to do this work for half of what you charge,” I simply will reply with something like, “You would not even be able to receive half of the quality that I can offer you, Mr. Customer, for half of the price!”
We have to be confident in ourselves as professionals. Instead of whining about the different lowballing workers that are hunting down as many clients as they can, focus on taking a stand and reminding your clients why they should stay with you in the first place. Remind them that quality is not something that comes cheap. Even though they may pay a little more upfront, they will get exactly what they need the first time around instead of being forced to pay even more on the back-end to have a lowballing contractor’s work fixed or replaced all together.
Think about it just like you would a poker game. A lowballing contractor wants to make people think that they have the perfect hand, but is really just a great bluffer. Instead of identifying their bluffs and staying in the game, there are so many quality players that willingly giving up their quality hands as a sign of surrender. Don’t give up! Keep fighting by continuously raising the stakes until they are forced to reveal their cards to their clients. That is the moment that we should be fighting for because that is the moment when those customers and clients that insisted on “shopping around” and “weighing their options” will start to realize that they were wrong all along.
Instead of being so quick to match lowballing offers, take a different approach. Do not focus too much on defense, but, rather, focus on a counterattack. Use the work of lowballing talent against them in order to show your prospective clients a sneak preview of what they might be getting by deciding to reject your offer because of a pricing difference. One of the most effective tools that I use is found at this link: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMtmeQRuU6k. Whenever someone tries to get me engaged in a bidding war with lowballing workers that charge $50, I simply send them that YouTube link to show them exactly what they can get for $50.
I am not using this YouTube link as a way of bashing this person, so please do not take it that way. I use this as a tool as a two-edged sword to remind myself why I will never compromise the quality standards that I have set for my work just to close a few more clients and it reminds my potential and existing clients about why they should never expect me to do so.
If a client expects quality work, they should be focused on investing the right sound for their project more than the right price. If you build a quality business, quality clients will come! Other people and professionals will try to discourage you, distort your vision and distract you from achieving your goals. That is just because they do not see what you see when they look at your business. They cannot see the successful baseball diamond, because they are too focused on the cornfield. They cannot see the needles, because they are too distracted by the haystacks.
Just as they need to go to a diamond jeweler for diamonds and a dealership for a brand new car, lowballing clients are never going to find the true gems and showroom quality that they expect without coming to you first. That is the mentality that you need to have and fight to maintain, regardless of how many clients seem to be turning you down because of it. I would rather struggle for 10 quality clients that each lead to thousands of dollars of work this year instead of for thousands of clients that only wants to pay me 10 dollars.
Believe in your work. Believe that what you can offer to your client is worth every dollar that they spend for it, even if it is a little more than they expected to pay upfront. This is how you will be able to achieve the success and longevity that you have been dreaming about since you first began this journey. And do not let any lowballing client ever make you think otherwise.
For the record, yes – I do like Kevin Costner movies, but that’s not the point! (Lol) Use that perspective to clear the field of corny lowballing clients and plant the seeds that will allow you to eventually cultivate a field of dream client that will offer you high-quality pay for high-quality work for many years to come!
Great to read you Terry! Well even working to what I think is a sensible price-list, I wasn’t too sure what colleagues regard as lowballing, especially as I’m UK-based. What an illustration there on YouTube. It would be so funny if it were not so serious.
Terry,
Well written! RIGHT ON!!
one word — INTEGRITY — we should not fear losing work if we believe in ourselves and what we do!!
Thank you for putting that in writing!!
this is all good information but it seems be written from the perspective of an already successful professional who is in a position to avoid low balling. It’s much more difficult to possibly exclude yourself from potential work when you’re a beginner, having no luck auditioning on websites and are fairly desperate for any opportunities and low balling would seem to increase the possibilities of getting some much needed work. If it wasn’t for the volunteer work I’ve done (just for experience and making a few contacts) I’d have nothing on my resume at all. And I’ve even been in the position of having to compete for VOLUNTEER work!
That’s a valid point, Verden but I was in those same shoes when I started doing it full time and even back then, I wasn’t about to sell myself short. It’s all about integrity and how you market yourself. If you’re good, you deserve fair compensation. I think it’s great you have done volunteer work. I still do a fair share, myself. Keep at it! :-)