How To Pick a Great Voice Over Coach

Your voice is your instrument and is also the main component of your business.

That being said, it is crucial that you find the right teacher for you to study with as the decision made will directly impact the outcome of your goals.

For our purposes, I am going to assume that you are a working professional or are on the brink of starting out as a novice voice actor who wants to study with a teacher to aid in the preparation of recording a voice over demo.

While a great deal of your success is reliant upon your actions and level of dedication a significant amount of weight is held where private study with a teacher of voice over is concerned.

We've all had teachers along the way, whether in public school or through private lessons, who have had left an imprint on our perspectives, goals, and potentially the directions taken in our lives.

Teachers have the ability to inspire or to deter depending on how you interpret their methodology, or bedside manner if you will.

This is why you need to select the best fit for you as a student of voice over to succeed.

For every person, there is most definitely an instructor who can open you up, develop, and refine your skills. The challenge is finding these individuals and having the ambition and humility to become a student of voice over.

Depending on your needs and aspirations, you will discover that certain coaches will make a better fit for you than others, particularly if you are working within a niche of voice over. The narrower your niche, the fewer qualified coaches there will be that meet your needs.

What do I mean by that?

Let's say you are specifically interested in studying with a teacher of audiobook narration.

Now let's add a few variables:

This teacher also needs to have at least 20 years experience, lives within a two to three hour drive of your home, and is a voice acting specialist in the field of audiobooks.

That's not even hitting on personality, teaching style, or educational facility.

To be certain you will have your own set of criteria that will need to be met that may be completely different from the example I've used above.

More options are opened up to you if you are interested in studying over the phone, Internet, or through reading books, so keep those avenues in mind if you cannot locate someone within a 200 mile radius of your home.

After you've settled on what your criteria is for studying with a voice over coach, it's time to start doing some research.

My advice is to ask your colleagues about their experiences with a particular coach (one with whom they train with on a regular basis) and get the inside scoop from them on why they love studying with their teacher.

They'll have specific reasons why they chose and continue to work with the coach they are presently training with.

Don't just ask one of their students, though, ask several.

Each person will have their own unique reasons for studying with that coach and you may also find that students in a given studio share similar thoughts on why studying with them has improved their performance.

What to look for in a voice over coach?

- Honesty and Integrity
- A Genuine Interest in You
- Positive Referrals from Past and Current Students
- Recognized by their Peers
- Education and Degrees
- Practical Experience
- National or International Credits for Voice Work
- Awards Won
- Community Involvement
- Good Business Ethics

One of the ways that the team at Voices is assisting you to find voice over coaches is by offering the Voice Over Experts Podcast.

Each week, you'll have the opportunity to freely sample the teaching style and expertise of a different voice over expert, helping you to learn more about the instructor before making a commitment to study with them.

You'll also find that each coach has provided a biography for you to review and a link has been provided to their websites directly from the Voice Over Experts website making it easy for you to peruse a variety of voice over experts and acquire more information.

Now that you have the tools to find a voice over coach, you can start your quest to voice over excellence.