SMALL WORLD!
Published June 14, 2009
I’m amazed at how small the world is getting!
Ten years ago an international voiceover client was rare for me. I had a few regulars; and a few national clients that needed international work. But finding new international clients was unique.
Now there isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t get at least an inquiry from a potential new international client. And by international I don’t just mean Canada or Mexico. My workload is growing (thankfully!) with clients in India, the Netherlands, Jordan, England, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and on and on. Amazing!
The translation industry is on fire right now! As companies seek to compete in other markets, the demand for translation work is greater than ever. Voiceover work tends to follow that lead.
One of the curious things that I’m seeing happen is the growth of foreign production houses creating projects to be used in the US. And not because it’s cheaper. In fact, I’ve found my rates hold with international clients. They don’t seem to be cutting costs from what I can tell. So, why is that happening?
Well, it seems that a lot of international companies based in other countries are looking to compete IN the US or to compete for US dollars in the international markets. That’s part of it.
I like to think the other reason is that I’m just pretty.
But I suspect the real other reason is that American companies are becoming more international, and the demand to place those products AND the competition that creates has opened up new doors for support industries such as voiceover and translation work.
More and more of us full-time voice talents are finding ourselves having to learn wonderful and unique nuances in language exchanges to communicate with new clients; we’re making new friends all over the world; we find ourselves digging for news and information about places we didn’t even know existed a few years ago; we’re discovering wonderful and charming similarities and differences in various cultures; we’re learning to use currency exchange sites to invoice properly and fighting with our invoice software to accept the different currencies.
How exciting to be part of such an historical industrial transition!