0048: A Common Question That Has No Answer…For Performers

Raw transcript:

every so often i hear one particular
question being asked by people who want
to become performers
and when i hear the question asked i
think i know why it’s being asked but
i’m wondering
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why the person asking it
doesn’t realize
that it’s nonsense
especially when it comes to performance
i’m going to share with you the question
why it’s being asked why it’s nonsense
we’ll do all that in this episode of the
vo heroes podcast
[Music]
i was in a webinar the other day with a
bunch of of actors who wanted to further
their careers
and a question was brought up
that i hear a lot now in this particular
webinar
somebody was making an offer of training
and the question that was asked by one
of the attendees was well what guarantee
do i have
and i stopped listening at that point
it could have and it could have ended
the sentence with uh that your training
will help me that i’ll ever
uh be able to do this that i’ll ever get
booked that i’ll ever get any auditions
that that i’ll get better at what i do
it doesn’t matter
the answer is
there is no guarantee
and
i think i know the reason why people ask
this question because
we’re trained
from the very beginning of our our
journey to purchase things
with having a return on investment and
some sort of a money-back guarantee and
you know when it comes to
performance it’s kind of hard to predict
that
in fact it’s so hard to predict that
that anybody who does give you a
money-back guarantee
or gives you a
a prediction on how long it will take
you to get a return on your investment
or
gives you some indication of how long
you’ll have to do something before
you’ll start to see results
i i would i would question whether or
not what they’re offering you is going
to be true
now there are people who offer training
and they offer a guarantee they offer
money back if you’re not happy a refund
but they don’t guarantee
that
what they teach you
will get you work
they just don’t if they’re at all honest
about what they’re doing when it comes
to performance they simply don’t
and here’s why
there is so much beyond your control
when it comes to voiceover when it comes
to acting on camera when it comes to any
sort of
pursuit in performance
that
leaves most of the decision making up to
somebody else
you can’t
align what we do for a living with
more normal more mainstream
uh pursuits uh skills uh
you know
plumbing or
contracting or or data processing or
customer service or who knows
those are
pursuits that have fairly specific
training requirements
they have lots and lots of opportunities
they have heavy churn you know people go
through those positions and they go
leave for another job or they come from
another job
you know in our business
there are
x number of opportunities
and
a million times x number of people who
are willing to do
what those opportunities
offer as jobs
and so because the supply
far
is outstripped by the demand
um
the rules of return on investment and
how long will it take to make my money
back you know whenever i hear anybody
answer that i’m like i don’t i can’t
tell you that i don’t know what the
answer is to that
and further than that
you know i want you to know that if
anybody is holding their hand out and
saying if you just give me some money
i’ll make sure you get booked
i can show you the tricks of getting
booked i can show you the secrets of
getting booked i can show you what
you’re doing wrong that will help you
get booked
that’s a pretty heavy promise and a
pretty difficult one to manage to to to
follow through on
so for example with vo heroes with the
acx master class with other things that
i teach and so on i don’t have a refund
policy actually what i have is a no
refund policy
and i don’t have a guarantee
because that’s being honest i i i don’t
guarantee that anything that i teach you
is going to work because i don’t know
how much engagement you’re going to give
me to what i’m teaching
and i have no control just like you have
no control over the people that decide
who gets the jobs
but what i can say is that if you get
good training if you get good support
from the people who do give you training
and from your peer group and from your
community
you will increase the chances
that you get work that you continue to
get work and that the work that you do
is spectacular
but to ask the question
that basically circles around what’s the
return on my investment how long will it
take me to make my money back
what guarantee do i have
that’s a question that you can simply uh
not ask and just take the time that you
would have
used to ask that question and ask
something more productive
like
i need this particular type of training
do you offer that
will this make me a better performer
you know those those are those are
questions
that can reasonably be answered if you
engage in the process if you engage in
the training a lot of people sign up for
training and they never even crack the
book
they never even sign in to the website
they never even
take a moment and start a discussion in
the discussion group for the class
so
i didn’t say anything as a participant
in this webinar but what i wanted to say
was
there are no guarantees
nobody can say for sure how long it will
take you to make your money back on your
investment should you decide to do this
and you have to be comfortable with that
as a performer you just have to
it’s not like if i go to college or if i
go to a vocational school and i learn
auto repair how long will it take me to
get a job at a shop
that’s not how this works
and i don’t think i’m telling you
anything you don’t already know
but just in case there’s somebody out
there who’s saying you really have to
make sure you know how much money you’re
going to be spending on stuff and how
long it’s going to take you to make your
money back
i i just don’t i don’t have
faith
that that’s an answerable question
i have a question for you though when
you first started training
in the performing arts did you ask that
question
or did you just rely on the fact that
you had it inside you
and whether it took you a month or a
year or a decade
or 40 years to get your first gig
were you willing to do it
were you just in a position where you
had to do it
let me know in the comments below i’d
really love to know and if you know of
an actor that would benefit from these
videos please you know forward the link
let them read this
let them hear this let them see this
um
i think it’s really important for
everybody’s expectations to be
reasonable
and it’s not reasonable to think there
are any guarantees in the world of
performance
i’m david h lawrence the 17th i thank
you so much for watching
and for listening
and i will see you in the next video on
the vo heroes podcast
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