South Coast Voices

If I’m consistent at one thing, then it’s sticking at a job.

I know it’s hard to believe(!) but I am 46 years old, and being a full-time professional voiceover artist is only my third career since I left school at 16 – I tend to stay put.

As a fresh-faced, naive young man of 16 I joined the Royal Navy in 1987 where I served 13 years as a Radio Operator. Leaving the Andrew in 2001 – after two gulf wars and lots of time spent in seedy bars in various ports round the world – I joined a lovely IT company called First Option where I eventually became the Support Manager until I left in June 2017.

So that’s two jobs with over 28 years of time spent in them, like I said, I tend to stick around.

I suppose the point of this blog post is to explain how I came to be where I am today; sat in my home studio, the owner of my own business.

I always wanted to be an actor when I was growing up, but being in the back-end of nowhere in a village in Bedfordshire I really didn’t know where to take this ambition. I’d always been good at “doing voices” but I was quite a shy person (still am in a lot of ways) and was too scared to sign up for drama classes at school.

I kept this under my hat until I eventually turned 16, realised there was nothing for me in a one street village in middle England and decided to see the world.

As I said above, I joined the Navy in 1987 as a Radio Operator, and I was pretty good at it if I do say so myself, I never had any problems with donning a headset and speaking to anyone over the radio – the shyness that I had talking face-to-face never once appeared when I was doing the job. I guess the training took over and I got in the zone and just got on with it.

13 years is a long time to be in the Navy, and towards the end of my career I met and fell in love with a lovely young lady, Jane-Anne, from a small town just north of Portsmouth. We married in 1999 and not long after I left the Navy in 2001. It was the right time; the Navy was changing (in my opinion for the worse) and I’d had enough.

So, I left.

I joined First Option as a Technical Support Engineer a week after I left the Navy. This was a culture shock. After so long in the armed forces, doing a 9-5 job was a total mind-fuck. No-one ordered me around, I didn’t need to call anyone Sir or Ma’am. This was great!

There were, and still are, a great bunch of people there and I miss the office camaraderie in some ways – but not enough to go back though!

During my time at First Option I fell into doing the telephone voice greetings that clients would hear when they called in to raise a technical support case. This earned me the nickname “Voiceover Man” – can you see where this is going?

Around the end of 2014 I was starting to get bored at First Option – I no longer enjoyed the work and I really didn’t like being the Support Manager – throughout my Navy career I never had to order anyone around and I was never totally comfortable with management or leadership.

I started looking around for a new career – given I was in my mid-40’s I guessed that this was probably the last chance I had to switch before I was too “old” to do it.

I had never really forgotten the acting idea, and still throughout my time at First Option I was known for impressions and stupid voices so I thought why not combine the two.

I started to investigate the world of Voiceover early 2015 and decided to dip my toes in the water.

I purchased a cheapo USB mic (shudder) and made a pillow-fort booth in my garage and decided to go for it.

I found an organisation on the Internet called Librivox – they are a publisher of out of copyright audiobooks – you’re talking some nearly a hundred years old – nothing remotely modern but I thought it would be a good place to cut my teeth.

I started volunteering with Librivox doing chapters of various different audiobooks, and to my amazement I started getting really good feedback from the editors about my voice…

Perhaps I can do this, I thought to myself.

I investigated some more and found that there were a few companies that I could approach for a chat about Voiceover and I decided on Big Fish Media in Woking, owned and run by Ex-Radio2 guy Ricky Salmon.

I booked-in with Big Fish to have a couple of hours sit down with another ex-radio2 presenter, Fenella Fudge.

It was a lightbulb moment.

I did some cold reads for her and I again got some very good feedback and she thought I could do it.

I then looked into getting a voiceover demo done – something sufficient to get my foot in the door.

I’d heard good things online about Gary Terzza from VOMasterclass and I booked a day with him and came out with a demo reel, a mentor for a year and a big smile on my face. I knew then that this was it.

From that day, I started signing up with as many voiceover sites as I could – just to get my name/face/demo out there.

From Pay to Play (voices.com, voices.com, Voice123, to Fiverr I’ve been on them all. Although you’ll be glad to know that I am no longer on Fiverr!!

I had a carpenter come in and build me a ‘x4 studio in my garage. I bought some decent audio kit and got on with it.

I started doing voiceover part-time, coming home from my 9-5 and recording until after midnight sometimes; much to the annoyance of my wife.

I also joined The Voiceover Network , and good lord what a lovely, helpful, supportive bunch of professionals they are. I honestly don’t think I could have made the leap without them. I am honoured to count some of the members as good friends who I can’t wait to meet at the social events!

It was early 2016 when I decided that I had to make this official and started up my own business – South Coast Voices – mainly as I was starting to make enough money that HMRC would start to notice if not.

I set myself the goal of going full-time VO when my income from voiceover matched or exceeded the income from my IT job for 6 months straight, so I knew it wasn’t a fluke.

It took a little longer to go full-time than I first thought, as I’d been at First Option so long I couldn’t just up and leave. I was senior management so I had to give three month’s notice, which I did in early 2017.

I left First Option 8^th of June 2017 after having almost 12 months of income that exceeded my IT job – it was obvious that I had to quit IT, as much for the money as my poor wife who was losing her husband most nights.

So, there you have it, that’s my story.

I’m sat here in my cozy little studio, my own boss, with an agent, wearing crappy old comfy clothes, working with awesome people from all round the word who have searched me out to help them, and damn it if it isn’t the best feeling in the world.

Mark Thomas

Voiceover Artist

Well, today is a big day.

In approximately 2 hours I’ll be leaving my 9-5 job and will be a full-time voiceover artist. A little scared, but mostly excited. It’s been a hectic couple of years since I decided to do a complete 180 from an IT Manager, to a VOA. It’s a weird feeling knowing that I’m now my own boss from 12:45.

I’ve had to learn accounting, marketing, breathing, acting and lots of other things ending in “ing” that I’d never had to consider before. I’m confident that if I do ever get stuck the lovely people in this industry, especially the awesome friends I’ve made through The Voiceover Network and elsewhere will be there to help.

Thanks everyone.