What should I look for in a voice coach?
A good question many people don't bother to ask. First and foremost, a good voice coach should have a ton of experience as a professional voice talent including voicing, broadcasting, copy writing, acting (good, but not a "must") and the recording process. They should also have plenty of references for you to check out, in addition to a demo of their own for you to listen to.
Good coaches will first critique your voice and give you an honest assessment of your ability. This, of course, almost never happens. That's because most of these people are in the business of "selling dreams" - who will pump you full of accolades and superlatives just to get your money. Watch out for starving actors and casting directors wanting to supplement their meagre incomes.....they're the ones who usually have a regular "class" on a weekend that'll you'll pay a hefty price for attending.
The class will normally be about 4 hours. 2 hours will be spent on stuff like "This is a script..." and.... "This is a microphone...you speak into it here..." and the other two hours will be spent "in-studio." The "in-studio" portion of the course equates to you (as an individual) having a total of about 10 minutes behind the mic, depending on the size of the class - usually 8-10 people.
Why the "split" of 2 hours here and 2 hours there? Because "in-studio" time requires an engineer and is therefore a hard cost for the coach; the less time a coach spends recording in a studio with an engineer - the more money the coach makes.
Normally, demos are extra. If the course is offering a demo as part of the course, don't get your hopes up that the demo will get you an agent....or anything for that matter.
I charge a fee for the purpose of evaluating only those people who are truly interested and committed on getting into the voiceover business. Simply put, I don't make my living from doing voice critiques - I just do it on the side for something different and to prevent a few people from getting ripped off. Indeed, I think I'm the only person out there that offers this service, because I have no interest in running a VO coaching business.
