Truck signs

It’s hard to miss my truck driving down the road now.  Years ago I got the vanity license plates “NO DUMMY”.  And I got custom license plate frames that provided a little bit of explanation for that.  Most people didn’t notice the frames.  I think the new signage makes it pretty obvious.  But, then, maybe not.  We’ll see.

The "No Dummy" mobile is ready for action.

Let me know what you think.

Don’t say “no” for them

Here’s a marketing/sales tip for you.  Don’t reject the sale before the client has reviewed the offer.

As entertainers, we’ve all done it. That email, or phone message, or web request comes in asking for a price to do a performance at an event. You read into the message and make assumptions. And you immediately think of all the reasons why they aren’t going to be able to afford your regular fee.  It’s for a small group. It’s in a small town. It’s a kid’s birthday party.  I’m sure you have your own set of filters. As a result, you decide to tell them “no thanks”, or you quote a rate that is less than your usual fee.

Here’s my tip for the day – Respond with your full fee and let them be the ones to say “no thanks”.

I recently received one of those requests. So many of my “this will never fly” alarm bells went off I lost count.  And guess what – I got the gig.

What is the event?  It’s a family gathering, celebrating the birthday of the youngest daughter who is turning 14, in a suburb of Los Angeles, CA.  Oh, and it’s being held on Thanksgiving Day.

My first reaction? I don’t travel that far for a birthday party. You can’t afford what I would charge to do that.  Then I thought, what the heck?  I’ll put it out there and let them make that call, not me.

I have a standard fee structure that I use.  Hopping on a plane is my highest rate. As another performer put it, “You’re not paying for my performance. The performance is free.  I do this for fun.  You’re paying to get me there.”  The logistics of taking my act on a plane require a great deal of effort and that is reflected in my fee structure.

In terms of cost to the client, this is one of my highest paying events for the whole year (so far).  And yet it’s for one of the smallest groups.  (About 30 people.)  Yeah, sure, I won’t be spending Thanksgiving Day with my family. Oh, well.  Believe me, I’ll be giving thanks on that day.

Make more mistakes

Here’s my goal for this year – Make more mistakes.

Yes, you read that right. For most of my life I have played it safe. Too safe.  Maybe that made me a good engineer. Then again, maybe not.

The more I go along in building my business, the more I realize and appreciate the value of making mistakes. Lots of them.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not out to waste vast amounts of money. I’m still eager to avoid making huge and costly blunders.  But, I am working hard to train myself that it’s OK to be less than perfect.  And write the cost of the mistakes off as education.

In launching my business, I studied people who have gone before me. I have made it a point to try to avoid the mistakes they have made. This has been helpful – to a point. What I’ve come to realize, though, is that by trying so hard to avoid other people’s mistakes, I’ve been unwilling to make enough of my own mistakes.

My degree is in electrical engineering. In my first job, I did both hardware and software design. I found out quickly that I was much better at software than hardware.  Why?  Because I made lots of mistakes and fixing mistakes in software is much easier than in hardware.  Hardware is a one-shot deal. You design the whole thing, review it as much as possible, commit it to production, and hope you got it right. (We did not have fancy hardware simulation tools that most good engineering shops use now.)

Over many years, I became a very good software engineer (it’s not bragging if it’s true). I favored the iterative approach to writing code. Write some, test it, fix the bugs, write some more, repeat.  The key was to test frequently and avoid getting in so deep that you had to rewrite huge amounts of code.

That’s what I’m trying to recapture as an approach in my business. Do a little at a time, test it, see if it’s working, adjust and move ahead.

This can only work if I allow myself to make mistakes along the way. By doing things a little at a time, I hope those mistakes are not catastrophic.

As I look back on my life and the choices I’ve made, I find it interesting that writing software is the only place where I truly took this iterative approach. And it is the thing I was the best at doing.  (I only stopped because I had to due to a physical injury – a long story for another time.)

Wish me luck. Now go make some mistakes of your own.

Negotiating fees

Are you struggling to book shows lately? I’ve had numerous conversations with people about pricing, discounting, negotiating fees, etc.  Here are a few of my thoughts.

• Rule #1 – Never negotiate your fee, but do offer discounts.  OK, the cynics are saying, “isn’t that the same thing?”  No, it’s not. Discounts are temporary. They are a special offer, not guaranteed to be available in the future. Whereas, if you negotiate your fee, you’re stuck with that as your new going rate.  In my contract package, I include a formal invoice. I list the performance fee, which is what it always is, then I list line item discounts that reduce the final price to whatever we agreed on.  Feel free to make up discounts.  One example from a recent invoice is, “Special economic stimulus discount”.

• Rule #2 – Always ask for something in exchange for a reduced rate. Do you have products to sell after the show? Maybe offer a discount to your performance fee for explicit permission to sell stuff.  Are you trying to build video footage for promotional use or even a DVD?  Ask for them to provide video recording services.  If nothing else, at least ask them to provide you with at least 3 people whom you can contact using them as a reference.

• And here’s one last idea I’ve been using. I’ve been doing shows for retirement communities around town. Primarily I view these as a service project.  I love doing them as I have a soft spot for senior citizens (I plan to be one someday.)  And it’s really helpful to me in continuing my efforts to ttaallllkkkk ssslllllooooowwweeeerrrr.  My deal with these groups is, “what’s your budget? OK, that’s what I’ll charge you.”  Their budgets barely cover my expenses, but I’ll continue doing this as long as I am able. There are a number of caveats that go with the deal. The main one is that I reserve the right to cancel at any time if I get booked for another event.

The work is out there, folks. Go find the people who need what you have to offer. Don’t give it away, but do work with them to find creative solutions.

Missed opportunity

The show in Zanesville went great last week. It is so cool to have an audience of people who made a conscious choice to leave the comfort of their homes and pay money to watch me perform. So much of my work is for captive audiences: corporate events where people are expected to show up. It is hard to express how amazing it feels that these people last week chose to attend the show.

It became clear early on that I missed an opportunity while I was there. Several people asked me whether I had anything to sell.  T-shirts, DVDs, anything.  Both of these are in the works, but not quite ready.  Actually, the DVD will quite likely incorporate footage from this very show.

How many other shows have I done where I could have made a few extra bucks – and distributed promotional materials at the same time! – but missed the opportunity for lack of product to offer?  Well, stay tuned, because I hope to never miss this particular opportunity again.

I’d love suggestions and comments on possible T-shirt designs. Eugene and Jose’ are the most likely characters to have their own shirts. And, of course, there will be some playing around with “I’m No Dummy” text. What kind of shirt would YOU buy? Let me know. Heck, shoot me a design! If I use your design, I’ll send you a free shirt.

Billboard

This is so cool.  My face on a billboard.

This is for a performance next week in Zanesville, OH.  You can find more information at the Muskingum County Conference & Welcome Center’s web site. At least, you’ll be able to once their web site gets fixed. As I write this, it is unavailable as they are in the process of launching a new version of the site.

Zanesville has been very good to me over the past several years. I’ve done more shows there than in my own suburb of Upper Arlington. In many ways, I feel more at home there than I do in UA.

A few years ago, the head of tourism in Zanesville had me listed as one of the local attractions for the area. You can see the result here in the listing for the Fairfield Inn.

All of this is very cool and very humbling. It is truly amazing to have other people promoting you. I hope that you have an opportunity to experience this same joy.

And if you can get to Zanesville, OH, next Thursday evening, I’d love to have you in the audience.

ASCAP part 2

Several months ago I blogged about getting an ASCAP license.  At the time, it seemed like a great idea.  That opinion has changed.

What I thought was an “annual” license when I paid the money in September, was actually a license that is renewable each January.  They have no concept of pro-rating the fee.  Nor did they clearly disclose that this was the case.  Had I understood all of the details at the time, there is no way I would have paid a full year’s license fee for 3 months.  And believe me, I let them know this over the phone when the renewal bills started coming.

The technicalities of the license are these:  If you are doing purely entertainment, it is the responsibility of the venue to provide the license for any music being used in your performance.  If the purpose of the presentation is educational, it is then the responsibility of the presenter to carry the license.  The woman I spoke with today confirmed this as being correct.  Why they make this distinction I have no idea.  Also, we didn’t get into any fuzzy areas of “main purpose” vs. “side benefits”.

Bottom line is, I no longer carry a license.

Just keep swimmnig

My family spent last week in Orlando, FL.  We spent 3 days at Disney theme parks.  I found great inspiration there. One of the live shows we saw was “Finding Nemo”.  You remember that, right?  Two key points:

1. Just keep swimming – This is Dory’s mantra.  As she is helping Nemo’s dad (Marlin) search for Nemo, they encounter numerous challenges and obstacles.  Through it all, Dory reminds Marlin to just keep swimming.  Many days in my business, I have to remind myself of that. There are those days when it feels like nothing is working, no progress is being made. That’s when I just keep swimming. Some days are harder than others to keep at it, but I keep on swimming.
2. Let go – One of my favorite parts of the show was the turtle scene.  The movie version of this is even better, but the live action turtles are a sight to behold. The wise turtles tell us that when you’re caught up in the East Australian Current, the best thing you can do is let it ride.  When things are moving along, don’t fight it.  Kick back and enjoy the ride.

Just keep swimming.

Bad show or bad audience?

If you’re in this business, you’ve surely had a show (or 2…) where the audience did not laugh.   You told the same joke you’ve told 100 times before, the same way, and no response.  And you’ve probably experienced a performance where nothing seems to click.  The audience sits there, stone faced, some smattering of polite applause, but no raucous laughter where you are used to hearing it.

Is that a bad audience?

I recently performed at an event where I was one of several performers on the stage.  I used two characters from my regular show.  These two characters (Eugene and Curtis) have been getting great responses.  At this particular event, with nearly 300 people in the audience, the laughter was only so-so.  A week prior, a room with 30 people was laughing so hard they fell out of their chairs and the noise was heard in the hallways from behind closed doors.  Same material.

Whose fault is that?

Several friends of mine were in the audience of 300.  They assured me I did a great job.  “But, the laughs were not what I would normally expect.”, I told them.  “Don’t worry about it.”, they said in response, ” Most of those people wouldn’t laugh at anything.”

Still, it bothered me. My job is to entertain.  Specifically, to make people laugh.  (Or, more correctly, to free the laughter that is bottled up inside.  I don’t think you can really make someone laugh.  Aside from physically tickling the person, I suppose.  But, I digress…)

If my job is to make people laugh and they’re not laughing, have I failed to do my job?  I’ve heard that Jay Johnson has said his approach to ventriloquism is to attempt to make people laugh, but that even if they aren’t laughing, to be so good that at least they are entertained by your skill as a ventriloquist.  I guess I subscribe to the Jeff Dunham school of ventriloquism.  Jeff sees himself as a comedian who happens to use ventriloquism as his vehicle.  Yes, you have to be good technically, but if they’re not laughing, what’s the point?

I’d love to hear from more of you out there on this topic.

Treadmill pacing

I’ve discovered a new tool for improving my act.  A treadmill.

Yes, I use the treadmill to stay in shape.  And that’s a very useful way to use this tool.  Being in shape and having stamina contributes greatly to performing as a ventriloquist.  It’s great for breath control.  But, that’s not what I’m talking about here.  I’m talking about pacing.

My single biggest problem continues to be slowing down every aspect of my show.  I simply talk too fast.  This is especially true with my old man & woman characters, Wilmer and Edna.  I’ve been working with them for over 4 years now, and yet I still struggle to slow myself down enough to truly convey the personality traits and mannerisms of people who are in their 90’s.

The other day while doing my exercise run on the treadmill, it occurred to me to try walking at a pace appropriate to Wilmer.  So, after my regular jog and cool-down phase, I slowed the treadmill way down.  Then slowed it down some more.  As I walked at a painfully slow pace, I started working through the routine in my head.  I envisioned Wilmer walking along side me.  I pictured how he’d move on his puppet stand if we were doing the show at that pace.  It clicked.

Now it’s a part of my regular workout on the treadmill.  I spend 2-3 minutes with the treadmill running (well, operating…) at what to me is a painfully slow pace.  Then, when I pull Wilmer out of the case, I think about walking on the treadmill at that pace.

It’s working.