Don’t Use ROI As A Measurement Too Soon. Use This Instead: ROS

well hey there hero it’s David H
Lawrence the 17th and over the years I
have had many potential clients ask me a
question that I guess on the surface is
a reasonable question to ask but it kind
of makes me nervous for them when they
ask it and the question that they ask is
hey if I study with you if I study
performance of a study voiceover if I
study on camera stuff how long before I
can make my money back and in many cases
that’s a reasonable question to ask if
you were studying to be in business or
if you were getting your MBA you know
you’re gonna spend all that money on an
MBA how long before you make that money
back if you’re gonna be a plumber you
know hey grandpa if you’re gonna be a
plumber
you know how long before you could make
enough money on clogging drains and
installing toilets and stuff to make
your money back on whatever training you
got and you paid for it to be a plumber
but the problem is if you use that
metric way too early in your training
when it comes to very spongy amorphous
capricious and totally unpredictable
training to go into a totally
unpredictable business like what we do
you could be the best actor in the world
you be the best voiceover talent in the
world and unfortunately there’s no
direct path to getting work you might
get work you might get a lot of work you
might get more work than anybody else
you might get no work for years and it
has to do with how engaged you are it
has to do with your portfolio of
opportunities where you live how you
spend your time seeking those
opportunities very different from most
of the things that people study for and
then do for a living you know the idea
of getting your MBA
there’s all kinds of articles online
that will show you how to calculate your
MBA ROI getting that degree master’s in
Business Administration how long will it
take you to earn back the money that you
spend at various colleges and
universities but the difference there is
there is a very very aggressive
recruitment campaign being done by the
big big companies and the big
consultants to get people from the very
best schools before they even graduate
as you know nobody is hanging out at the
doors of acting schools or or pummeling
me with email saying hey as soon as your
graduates are ready let me know because
I want to give them work that just
doesn’t happen in our business part of
it is the deal flow of our business part
of it is the celebrity factor in our
business but before you decide to judge
what whether or not you should take a
course or take a class and do so based
on this notion of well how quickly can I
make my money back just know that ours
is not an in an industry where that
makes sense certainly not at the very
beginning now as you gain traction and
as you gain work and you have a body of
work that you can show to people and
that you get well known then those
things start to change a little bit the
metrics start to change we’ve talked
about the rules changing and the ROI
rules will begin to change as well
because you’ll begin to weigh one
project versus another based on what
you’ll make from it or what kind of
satisfaction it will give you so I know
that’s not very comforting but I can
give you something to use instead
instead of ROI think about our OS return
on satisfaction how will it make you
feel because ours is a business that if
you know going in you may not get work
for a long time so you better love what
we’re doing you better love what you’re
doing you better love this whole
business the whole notion of
storytelling as a living the whole
notion
of performance on mic on camera and
think about what’s your return on
satisfaction going to be are you gonna
be happy
training with me versus training with
somebody else or taking acting classes
at one location rather than another I
can tell you that my return on
satisfaction in taking classes at Howard
fine for example as opposed to some of
the really I mean amazingly awful things
that I sat through when I was auditing
courses and classes you know I knew I
was prepared I had a war chest set aside
I was prepared to not get worked for ten
years and then reassess it at that point
and see if there was something else I
could do to extend that deadline because
I really loved what I was doing and it
makes sense to say well if I’m gonna
spend this money what how am I gonna get
it I got a family I got a feed people I
gotta feed myself I got a car I’ve got
rent or mortgage I get that it’s just
not useful in our business unfortunately
but when you’re when you’re when you
have no choice right when you’re a
performer and an artist because it’s in
you and there’s no getting it out of you
and there’s no suppressing it and
there’s no D amplifying it if that’s
even a word there’s no stopping this
desire that you have to be an actor to
be a voice-over talent to be a character
voice it’s not gonna happen so then you
have to think about do you really want
to use ROI as a metric for success so
what I’d love to know is did you think
that when you first started training did
you have that notion you know well what
should you know or if you didn’t what
did you tell yourself because I’d love
to know because I’d like to share that
with people when they say that to me I
go through this whole long explanation
when they say that to me
but I would love to know what you said
to yourself or what you didn’t say two
years I just would like to know your
thoughts on this below the video leave
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you from time to time I hope that helped
I hope it didn’t make you sad I’ve had
some people but whoa how am I supposed
to figure out whether I should do this
or not yeah I get it I’m David H
Lawrence the seventeenth I thank you so
much for watching and I will talk to you
tomorrow.