Disclaimer: I do not offer voice over coaching services. I am not yet at the level in my voice over career where I should be coaching fellow voice actors. This guide is friendly advice from a peer who did it wrong and learned the hard way so that you don’t have to. That being said, if you’d like some voice over coach recommendations, reach out and I’d be happy to provide them for you.
Whether you’re just starting in voice over or are a seasoned pro who needs a refresher or tune-up, you’re going to need professional voice over coaching to help you perform your best. Choosing a coach, however, can be trickier than you think.
This is because research is often a step that gets glossed over, especially in the early days of a voice over career. Many voice actors will choose the first coach they see or hear about and work with that person, even when the coaching is not working for them.
This is not isolated to the world of voice acting. Being humans who live in an instant-gratification world, we tend to do this with most things.
How many times have you wanted a pair of shoes, did a quick search or asked a friend for new shoe recommendations, skipped the research phase, and did not like the shoes when you got them?
How many times did you keep the shoes because you felt obligated to? How many times did you return them?
How many times did you actually like the shoes?
TLDR: Just because you found a voice over coach, it does not mean that you HAVE to work with them.
While the first voice over coach you choose can sometimes be the one, they may not always be right for you. When it’s not working out, it’s not working out, and it’s OK to go back to the drawing board.
Here’s why your first choice is not always the best, why this happens, and how you can vet your voice over coaches to help you find the right voice over coach for you.
Why You Shouldn't Always Settle for the First Coach
When you first realize you need coaching, you might feel compelled to do a search via Google (or let’s face it, ChatGPT and/or its search engine, SearchGPT) or ask fellow voice actors for coaching advice — and stick with the first name you see or the one that comes up the most.
Although there is nothing wrong with this approach, it’s not always the best and sometimes causes problems for you and your voice acting career. This can occur for several reasons. Here's 10.
10 Reasons Why You Should Not Always Settle for the First Voice Over Coach You See
A search engine or “AI” Chatbot is trying to answer your question based on the information it pulls via an algorithm without considering other factors, such as experience, teaching philosophies, intent, or even credibility.
Your search query may not be detailed enough to provide you with an accurate result (e.g., You need commercial coaching, but search for “best voice over coach.” Your search result might give you coaches for every genre or worse, coaching for every voice over genre BUT commercial).
Paid search results can pop up higher in a search engine, skewing your view of who you “should” go with based on how much they spent to be seen vs. who is best for you.
The coach’s personality or methods may not gel with yours.
You may not be comfortable working with certain coaches for whatever reason.
You blindly took a suggestion or search result without any further research.
You feel obligated to work with a coach because your friend is either a voiceover coach and/or gave you some voice over coach recommendations.
You are experiencing the sunk cost fallacy with a coach even though it is not working out.
You feel bad that it’s not working out but do not want to upset your current coach.
You did not do any work to research and vet a coach yourself.
When you’re trying to decide on the right voice over coach for your specific need, it’s not about what someone or something told you or how you “need to do it now before you waste more time.” It’s about what works best for you and your voice over career (your friend might have different areas that they needed coaching on and were able to obtain from the voice over coach they recommended for you).
Every voice over coach has unique techniques and methods that they teach based on their life experiences, acting classes and teachers, and fellow voice over coaches that they have trained with.
Searches and voice over coach recommendations are wonderful things to help you make a decision, but you can’t choose your voice over coaches blindly. You have to do your research, too.
How to Find A Voice Over Coach
You may have noticed the theme of research in my list. This is the most crucial step in any successful endeavor.
When choosing a voice over coach, you need to do your homework on the folks you’re considering. That all depends on your needs.
Do you need commercial coaching? Are you interested in pursuing animation or video games? Is eLearning and narration your thing? Or do you just want to do audiobooks?
Each of these voice over genres requires a different type of coaching. Some coaches do a few genres, but you need to focus on them one at a time.
Spaghetti-at-the-wall strategies don’t work anymore and are not the best way to approach life, let alone business.
Take your search suggestions and voice over coach recommendations and put them in a spreadsheet. Listen to voice over podcasts and jot down other names you hear or come across.
If you can attend, check out a voice over conference and ask questions to everyone you meet to help you find out who’s out there. As you listen to some of these voice over coaches talk, they’ll name-drop other voice actors and coaches. If you don’t have those names written down, get those too.
If you can’t attend a voice over conference, at least look at the speaker lineup. Find a Facebook group like Voice Actors of NYC and ask questions there. Jot down the names you get from there as well.
You’re also going to hear a lot of the same names and get some of the same information in these groups. This is good. It will help you narrow down your search for the right coach and you’ll pick up some of the right info to get started.
You’ll also get an idea of what not to do and learn about some red flags to watch out for.
A Note About YouTube and Reddit for Voice Actors
Just like the rest of the internet, YouTube and Reddit are places where you’ll get LOTS of information, and not all of it’s good. While there are many reputable voice over coaches and voice actors giving solid advice on these platforms, others are not.
Like other YouTubers, voice over coaches and voice actors are playing to an algorithm so that their videos find you. Unlike search engines, YouTube’s algorithm is not about intent. It is not trying to give you the right information, nor is it trying to answer your question. It is trying to feed you videos based on a topic it thinks you might like based on other things you watched.
It is very easy to get sucked into a YouTube rabbit hole of poor information or worse-intentional misinformation. Lots of charlatans serving up poor voice over techniques and philosophies have mastered YouTube's algorithm and have grown cult-like followings from inexperienced voice actors who are killing their careers before they begin.
If you’ve been around the voice over industry for a minute and have met some working pros, you know who they are and what they’re about.
As for Reddit, you will find lots of conflicting information (it’s the town square of the internet).
Many of the people posting are early or aspiring voice actors looking for information and are looking for positive energy. This is where lots of snake oil salespeople under the guise of a voice over coach will tell them what they need to hear and feed them bad info in the process to get them to take their course or work with them to help them achieve their dreams in 90 days or whatever the case may be.
Many voice actors will unknowingly share bad information in these posts.
Although Reddit subs have moderators, there is no criteria required to become one. In a voice over Reddit sub, this is not good. Mods can be brand new to the industry or they can have multi-decade voice over careers. No standard means anything goes.
TLDR: A Reddit moderator’s credentials don’t matter, and it’s the main reason why so much bad information and good information wind up in the same places.
When it comes to Reddit and YouTube, feel free to lurk and jot down names, but take everything you see and read with a grain of salt (if it sounds fishy, it probably is). This is especially true if you are just starting your voice over career.
Now that you have a bunch of voice over coaches to choose from, you should start your searches. Search every voice over coach on your list, or at least a list of the top 10 coaches you think might help you.
As you navigate the careers of your prospective voice over coaches, you may have some thoughts.
What styles do they teach? Who are their clients? What work have they done? How long have they been in the business? Do they coach all levels or are their programs focused on beginner voice actors? What kind of reputation do they have within the industry?
These are the questions you should be asking and answering in your spreadsheet as you whittle down your options.
Selecting a Voice Acting Coach
Once you’ve gone through your list of names and found some folks you think you might gel with, start reaching out. Schedule a consultation with them so that you can ask them about the coaching that you need. Jot down any questions you have and try to get them answered during the consultation.
Some questions you may want to ask your possible voice over coach include: What are their methods and how do they approach this genre when it comes to coaching? How much does a session cost? Do they offer bulk discounts or bundled sessions?
During your coaching consultation, take note of your potential voice over coach’s body language, demeanor, and how they communicate. Do this with as many coaches as you can.
Some may have not answered your questions well, have shown poor demeanor, or have given you contradicting information from what many pros have told you — these red flags are good and will help you cross some names off your list.
After meeting with several coaches, you should be able to narrow down your list to about three to five voice over coaches that you’d be comfortable working with. Think about which ones made you feel the most comfortable and answered your questions best. Compare coaching techniques and determine which approach is right for you. Pick the one you feel most assured about and start your sessions.
What to Do if Your Voice Over Coach Isn’t Working Out
If it turns out that the coaching experience is different from what the consultation promised, let them know that this isn’t working and you’d like to work with someone else. They’ll understand (and if they don’t, they've just validated your reason for not working with them). Trust your gut. It’s usually right. Cross them off the list and find another coach. It’s that easy.
How do I know? I’ve done it a few times. One experience is detailed in one of my Voice Over Origin Story articles. The other is coming up in a future article.
The quick notes are that one program’s coaches were not very good, while the individual coach was very rude and didn’t seem interested in coaching beginners at all despite what they said on their website and in interviews.
It wasn’t until I found my THIRD voice over program in Terry Daniel’s Universal Voice Talent that I was able to find the right coaches and voice over training that worked for me.
Remember, not every experience is supposed to be a good one, but you’re always going to learn something. If you need more help finding the right voice over coach, explain the situation to some of the voice actor pros in Facebook groups or contact them directly.
One of the best parts about the voice over community is that they are very helpful people and do not try to gatekeep newer talent out of succeeding (at worst, they might tell you that you’re not ready for the step that you’re trying to take and will steer you in the right direction). They might know some of the folks on your coach list, and will also help you narrow it down.
The Mic Drop
When you are looking for the right voice acting coach, remember not to rush into things. It can be exciting wherever you are in your career. And although it may seem tempting, you do not have to go with the first coach you discover.
To recap, here's how to find and vet your voice over coach:
Make a spreadsheet for potential voice over coaches.
Ask reputable voice actors for voice over coach recommendations.
Listen to voice over podcasts for advice and possible coaches.
Visit voice over conferences and look at their speaker lists.
Find reputable voice over Facebook groups and get coaches and advice from there.
Research every coach you can before reaching out.
Schedule consultations and ask questions about their coaching styles, session specifics and anything else you can think of.
Trust your gut.
If it's not working out, break up with your coach, revisit your spreadsheet and choose another.
When I worked at a Sam Ash music store, we had to watch sales training VHS tapes from the early 90s as part of the onboarding phase (this was in late 2013!). Like the technology, most of the information on those tapes was outdated, but there was one nugget of advice that wasn’t.
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
The perfect voice over coach is there, but you have to do your research.
Good luck and happy hunting. You've got this!
Looking for a professional voice actor who's always training? Fill out my project contact form or shoot me an email and get in touch today!