Going off of the last post, People. If you have thousands of connections and nothing to offer when they find you, you might as well not waste your time.

Sounds a little harsh, but it’s true. If someone finds you on your Myspace, Facebook, personal website (do you have one?), or they contact you by phone, are they going to be impressed with what they see or hear, or will they blow you off because you sound like an amateur?

There’s one way to prevent that: Practice.

I never say practice makes perfect, especially when it comes to voice over work. Practice makes persistence. You can’t always be perfect when it comes to voice over. Perfection lies in the ears of the producer or the client, not with your ears. Something may be perfect to your ears but completely wrong for the listener.

How do you practice using your voice? There’s a lot of great practice methods I use all the time.

Tongue twisters are great for practice. Practice speaking them technically perfect. Focus on the beginnings and end of the words at a slower tempo (like Rodney does in the video) and then speed it up little by little.

I mention tongue twisters first, because they’re a great warmup. After you are nice and warmed up, start working on some real scripts.

You might say, where do I find copy? Think of a product you like or a commercial you like and find it on Youtube. If you hear a commercial on the radio you like, find some way to record it and write it down. Don’t use these commercials in your demos, they are more than likely copyrighted and someone might come after you.

In a few weeks I’ll be coming out with my first collection of royalty free commercial copy. I’ve already started writing a lot of different kinds of commercials. I am quite the writer (as you know if you’ve read any of my posts) so these commercials won’t be the typical royalty free copy you’ll find, they’ll be good. These are different, you CAN use them in your demos and however you want, I don’t care. The collection will be copyrighted, but you are free to use them in your demos. Subscribe to my RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss the premiere.

Also, another great way to practice is to read aloud. Grab a good book from the library and just read it (aloud to yourself, into a recorder, or to someone else). If the person you’re reading to falls asleep, that might be a clue to something. Either pick a new book or spice it up a bit.

Practice really is important. I’m sure you hear that alot (even in this post), but it really is, no kidding. You have to suck it up and practice or you’ll probably never get any better.

If practicing is hard or gets old fast, don’t do it for long and take some breaks.

What some don’t recognize is landing a project and working for a client is practice within itself! It’s great. There’s no better practice than work itself.

Not getting any work? Practice! Market! Network! All these subjects are covered extensively in this blog. Sign up for the RSS feed and get all the latest updates to the blog. Working for yourself as a voiceover artist can be difficult without help. That’s why I’m here, to help you out!

Have fun practicing! Leave some of your favorite practice techniques in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Adding Some Spice to Boring Copy
2. Five P’s of Voice Over Success: Persistence
3. Five P’s of Voice Over Success: Price
4. Think it Through, It’s Good For You